Trapped 


in 


Black 
Russia" 


UC-NRLF 


SB    Eb3    T33 


ftuflv 
Pierce 


TRAPPED  IN  " BLACK  RUSSIA' 


TRAPPED  IN 
BLACK  RUSSIA" 

Letters 

JUNE-NOVEMBER   1915 
BY  RUTH  PIERCE 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
&fe  fttotfifce  pa** 
ifit 


COPYRIGHT,    1917,  BY  THE   ATLANTIC   MONTHLY   COMPANY 
COPYRIGHT,    1918,   BY   RUTH   PHINNEY   FIERCE 

ALL   RIGHTS  RESERVED 

Publish**  February  IQI& 


op. 


TRAPPED  IN  "BLACK  RUSSIA' 


382155 


"BLACK  RUSSIA" 

i 

June  30, 1915. 
Dearest  Mother  and  Dad:  — 

There  is  no  reason  why  this  letter  should 
ever  reach  you  if  you  consider  that  it's 
wartime  and  that  I  am  in  Russia.  Still, 
the  censor  may  be  sleeping  when  it  comes 
along,  or  I  may  find  a  way  to  slip  it  over 
the  border  under  his  very  nose.  I  always 
have  a  blind  faith  that  my  words  will 
reach  you  somehow. 

I  am  in  Russia  —  without  Peter.  Don't 
be  frightened,  dearests.  I  came  with 
Marie,  and  we  will  go  back  to  Bucharest 
together  in  a  week.  Only  a  week  in  Russia. 
Oh,  if  the  top  of  my  head  could  be  lifted 
off  and  let  out  everything  I  want  to  tell 
you. 

We  had  no  difficulty  in  crossing  the 
frontier.  The  little  Roumanian  train  took 
us  over  a  river,  and  all  at  once  we  were  out 
of  the  make-believe  country  where  the 
stage  always  seems  set  for  opera-bou/e. 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

There  were  no  more  pretty  Tziganes,  with 
disheveled  hair  and  dirty,  bare  breasts,  to 
offer  you  baskets  of  roses  and  white  lilies. 
There  were  no  Turks  in  red  fezes  squatting 
in  the  dust,  hunting  among  their  rags  for 
fleas,  and  there  were  no  more  slender  peas- 
ants in  tight  white-wool  trousers  and  beau- 
tiful embroidered  shirts.  Everything,  just 
by  crossing  a  river,  had  grown  more  serious 
and  sober-colored  and  several  sizes  larger. 
Pale-blue  uniforms  gave  place  to  dingy 
olive-brown  ones. 

A  porter  took  care  of  our  luggage.  He 
was  exactly  what  I  expected.  He  wore  a 
white  smock  with  red  and  blue  embroidery 
at  the  neck  and  wrists.  His  reddish  beard 
was  long  and  Tolstoyan.  We  followed  him 
into  the  big,  empty  railway  station,  and 
there  a  soldier  took  away  our  passports 
and  we  were  left  waiting  in  the  douane,  be- 
hind locked  and  guarded  doors,  together 
with  a  crowd  of  bewildered  Jews  and 
Roumanians. 

"  It  is  n't  much  like  the  Roumanian  fron- 
tier, is  it?  —  where  the  dreamy-eyed  offi- 
cial vises  your  passport  without  looking  at 
it  —  he's  so  busy  looking  at  you,"  Marie 
observed. 

"No,"  I  replied.  "This  is  Russia.  I  am 
[2] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

in  Russia,"  kept  going  through  my  head, 
and  I  felt  like  Alice  in  Wonderland,  trying 
to  adjust  myself  to  new  perspectives. 

"I  hate  getting  back  here,"  Marie  went 
on.  "It  was  too  good  to  be  in  a  country,  if 
only  for  a  little  while,  where  they  took 
things  easily.  If  I'd  stayed  a  little  longer, 
I  believe  I  could  have  laughed  myself  and 
felt  in  a  personal  relationship  toward  life 
again." 

That's  what  I  was  glad  to  get  away 
from.  You  get  too  personal  if  you  stay  in 
Roumania  long.  Roumania  gets  to  mean 
Bucharest,  and  Bucharest  the  universe. 
As  I  sat  waiting  in  the  douane,  I  felt  like 
puffing  out  and  growing  to  make  room  for 
Russia  inside  me. 

We  waited  hours. 

" Can't  you  hurry  our  passports?" 
Marie  asked  an  official.  "We  want  to 
leave  on  this  train." 

The  official  raised  his  shoulders  help- 
lessly. 

"  Seichas"  he  replied. 

"What  does  that  mean?" 

"Presently  —  immediately  —  never," 
Marie  replied  in  exasperation. 

The  train  we  were  to  have  taken  for 
Kiev  left  without  us,  on  tracks  twice  as 

[31 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

wide  as  those  of  the  Roumanian  toy  rail- 
road. Only  a  courier  with  a  diplomatic 
pouch  got  on. 

"It's  like  that  here,  always,"  Marie 
said.  "No  system,  no  economy  of  time,  or 
anything  else."  Suddenly  she  began  to 
laugh.  "  Everything  gets  on  my  nerves  as 
soon  as  I  get  into  Russia." 

We  left  late  in  the  afternoon.  The  air  in 
our  compartment  was  hot  and  stale.  When 
we  opened  the  window,  the  wind  blew  in 
on  our  faces  in  parching  gusts.  But  it  was 
grateful  after  the  smells  of  cabbage,  soup, 
tobacco,  and  dirty  Jews  that  we  had  been 
breathing  for  five  hours  in  the  douane. 

We  sat  by  the  window,  cracking  dried 
sunflower  seeds,  and  looking  out  at  the 
steppes  of  Little  Russia.  The  evening 
shadows  were  already  lying  in  the  hollows 
of  the  fields  of  ripening  wheat,  but  the  late 
sun  still  reddened  the  crests  and  the  col- 
umn of  smoke  from  our  engine.  Frightened 
larks  rose  from  the  tall  grain.  We  passed 
patches  of  dark  woods,  scattered  thatched 
huts.  Along  a  road  came  a  man  and  a 
woman  in  peasant  dress.  The  train  seemed 
to  slow  up  on  purpose  to  let  us  have  a 
glimpse  of  them  through  a  thin,  fine  pow- 
der of  golden  dust,  in  their  dark  home- 

[4] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

spuns,  with  patches  of  red  embroidery 
on  the  white  sleeves  and  necks  of  their 
blouses.  They  carried  a  green  box  between 
them.  Once  we  passed  through  a  wood  of 
pale-green  birches  with  thin  silver  stems. 
It  was  a  relief  to  see  lines  going  up  and 
down  after  the  wide,  level  lines  of  the 
steppes. 

And  then  it  grew  dark.  A  sense  of  sad- 
ness filled  me,  and  I  was  glad  when  the 
conductor  lighted  the  lamp  and  made  up 
my  berth.  We  lay  down  as  we  were,  all 
dressed,  and  the  train  rushing  and  swing- 
ing along  deadened  my  mind  and  feelings. 

I  was  wakened  by  the  conductor's 
twitching  the  covering  back  from  the  light. 
Our  carriage  had  broken  down  and  was 
going  to  be  side-tracked. 

Then  began  the  most  restless  night  I 
ever  spent.  We  bumped  along  in  a  third- 
class  carriage,  and  descended  to  wait  for 
an  hour  or  more  on  the  platform  of  some 
little  crossroad  station.  We  sat  on  our  bags 
till  our  spines  cracked  with  fatigue.  The 
men  smoked  one  cigarette  after  another. 
As  far  as  I  could  see  stretched  dark  fields 
lighted  dimly  by  thick  stars,  with  a  wind 
blowing  out  of  the  darkness  into  our  faces. 
No  one  spoke.  Down  the  tracks  a  round 

[si 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

white  headlight  grew  bigger  and  bigger. 
The  noise  of  the  approaching  train  filled 
the  night.  We  scrambled  into  another 
third-class  carriage  and  sat  on  some  more 
hard,  narrow  seats  for  an  hour  or  so. 

At  last  the  dawn  came  —  a  square  of 
gray  light  through  the  train  window.  Al- 
most every  one  had  fallen  asleep.  How 
pallid  and  ugly  they  looked  with  their 
mouths  open  and  their  heads  lolling  for- 
ward! 

At  ten  we  changed  for  the  last  time  be- 
fore Kiev.  The  carriage  was  not  divided  up 
into  compartments,  but  was  open,  with 
rows  of  seats  and  an  aisle  down  the  center, 
like  our  trains  in  America,  —  only  there 
was  an  upper  story  of  seats,  too.  I  stretched 
out  and  went  to  sleep.  When  I  woke  the 
carriage  was  filled.  Marie  and  I  occupied 
one  seat  together. 

Opposite  us  sat  a  fat,  red-nosed  man, 
with  a  fur  cap,  though  it  was  summer.  Be- 
tween his  legs  was  a  huge,  bulky  bag. 
When  the  train  stopped,  he  put  a  pinch  of 
tea  in  his  little  blue  enameled  teapot,  which 
he  filled  at  the  hot-water  tank  that  is  at 
every  Russian  station  just  for  that  pur- 
pose. He  pulled  out  of  his  bag  numberless 
newspaper  packages  and  spread  them  out 
[6] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

on  the  newspaper  across  his  knees  —  big 
fat  sausages  and  thin  fried  ones,  a  chunk  of 
ham,  a  boiled  chicken,  dried  pressed  meat, 
a  lump  of  melting  butter,  some  huge  cu- 
cumber pickles,  and  cheese.  With  a  mur- 
derous-looking knife  he  cut  thick  slices 
from  a  big  round  loaf  of  bread  that  he  held 
against  his  breast.  He  sweetened  his  tea 
with  some  sugar  from  another  package, 
and  sliced  a  lemon  into  it.  When  he  had 
finished  eating,  he  carefully  rolled  up  the 
food  again  and  put  it  away,  and  settled 
back  in  his  chair.  With  great  deliberation 
he  took  out  of  his  vest  pocket  a  little  black 
box  with  bright  flowers  painted  on  the  lid. 
He  fingered  it  lovingly  for  a  moment,  then 
he  took  a  pinch  of  snuff,  closing  his  eyes  in 
ecstasy  and  inhaling  deeply.  He  did  this 
three  times  and  blew  his  nose  vigorously. 
Then  he  put  the  box  away,  brushing  off  the 
gray  grains  of  powder  that  had  fallen  down 
his  vest  front.  All  day  long,  every  time  the 
train  stopped,  he  refilled  his  little  blue 
enameled  teapot  and  repeated  the  cere- 
mony, even  to  the  last  grain  of  snuff. 

Across  the  aisle  sat  two  priests,  un- 
shaven and  unshorn,  in  wide  black  hats, 
their  long,  greasy  black  hair  falling  over 
the  shoulders  of  their  dirty  gray  gowns. 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

They  spent  the  day  in  prayer  and  eating 
and  drinking.  They  were  evidently  bound 
for  Kiev  on  a  holy  pilgrimage  to  the  Lavra. 

In  the  seat  above  the  old  man  who  took 
snuff  lay  a  young  woman,  propped  on  her 
elbow.  Every  time  I  looked  at  her  she  was 
laughing,  pressing  a  pomegranate  seed  be- 
tween her  lips.  Her  hands  were  very  thin 
and  white.  Her  face  was  long  and  thin  and 
framed  by  short,  clipped  hair.  Every  now 
and  then  a  young  officer  came  up  to  her 
and  took  her  hand,  and  asked  if  she  wanted 
anything.  She  answered  him  indifferently, 
but  when  he  went  back  to  his  seat,  her  eyes 
followed  him  and  rested  on  him  with  the 
long,  narrow  look  of  a  watchful  cat. 

At  noon  and  night  we  stopped  at  rail- 
way stations  for  our  meals.  After  Bulgaria 
and  Roumania  it  was  bewildering  to  see 
the  counters  laden  with  hot  and  cold  meats 
and  vegetables  and  appetizing  zakouskas, 
and  thick  ztchee  soup,  and  steaming  samo- 
vars for  tea.  Through  the  open  windows 
came  refreshing  puffs  of  wind.  At  the 
restaurant  tables  sat  officers,  rich  Jews, 
and  traveling  business  men  —  nothing 
much  in  it  all  to  suggest  war.  Always,  on 
the  station  walls  were  bright-colored  por- 
traits, in  heavy  gilt  frames,  of  the  Czar  and 
[8] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

Czarina  and  the  royal  family.  And  always 
in  the  corners  of  the  room  were  ikons  with 
candles  lighted  before  them  at  night.  The 
train  always  started  before  people  had  fin- 
ished eating.  At  supper,  one  of  the  priests 
almost  got  left  and  had  to  run  for  it,  a  piece 
of  meat-pie  in  one  hand,  the  other  holding 
up  his  flapping  gray  gown. 

After  sunset,  more  and  more  officers  and 
soldiers  about.  At  stations,  orderlies  el- 
bowing their  way  through  the  crowd  to 
secure  seats  for  their  officers ;  officers  shout- 
ing to  their  orderlies;  officers  alone  or  with 
their  families,  arriving  with  valises  and 
bundles  and  pillows  —  enough  equipment 
to  meet  any  eventuality. 

Another  night  to  get  through  somehow, 
sitting  bolt  upright  in  a  car  thick  with  to- 
bacco smoke  and  smelling  of  stale  food  and 
soldiers'  boots. 

Once  we  stopped  for  an  hour  out  in  the 
fields.  Marie  and  I  opened  our  window  and 
stuck  our  heads  out  of  doors  to  breathe  the 
cool  air.  Extra  cars  had  been  put  on  during 
the  day,  and  we  could  see  the  long  curve  of 
the  train  behind  us,  with  the  red  squares 
of  the  lighted  windows.  There  was  a  move- 
ment of  troops,  and  soldiers  occupied  every 
inch  of  space.  We  could  hear  them  singing 

[9] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

soldier  songs  in  parts,  with  pronounced 
rhythm  and  unutterably  sad  cadences. 
Some  one  played  their  accompaniment  on 
a  balalaika.  Back  and  forth  under  our 
train  window  a  woman  paced  restlessly. 
Never  shall  I  forget  the  soldiers'  singing  to 
the  balalaika,  and  the  woman  with  her 
white  face  in  the  darkness,  and  the  millions 
of  stars  so  very  far  away. 

The  second  morning,  about  eight,  we 
pulled  into  Kiev.  Our  train  was  so  long 
that  we  had  some  distance  to  walk  before 
reaching  the  station.  As  we  approached,  I 
saw  a  crowd  of  people  being  driven  into 
baggage  cars.  I  was  so  tired  and  confused 
by  the  journey  that  I  did  n't  distinguish 
who  they  were  at  first.  When  I  got  close 
to  them,  I  saw  that  they  were  thin-faced 
Jews  in  clothes  too  big  for  them.  The  men 
looked  ~about  them  with  quick,  furtive 
movements,  a  bewildered,  frightened  look 
in  their  dark  eyes.  The  women  held  their 
shawls  over  their  faces,  and  pressed  against 
their  skirts  were  little  children.  A  stale, 
dirty  smell  came  from  them  all.  I  over- 
came my  disgust  and  looked  more  closely. 
How  white  the  faces  were,  with  purple 
sockets  for  the  eyes,  and  dried,  cracked 
lips!  No  one  seemed  to  have  any  personal- 

[  10] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

ity.  One  pallid  face  was  like  another  under 
the  stamp  of  suffering.  Gendarmes  with 
whips  kept  them  on  the  move,  and  struck 
the  leader  when  there  was  any  mix-up  that 
halted  the  procession  for  a  moment.  The 
Jews  seemed  to  shrink  into  themselves 
under  the  lash,  sinking  their  heads  between 
their  thin,  narrow  shoulders,  then  pressed 
forward  again  with  frantic  haste. 

I  heard  the  clanking  of  iron,  and  into  a 
separate  baggage  car  I  noticed  the  gen- 
darmes were  driving  a  group  linked  together 
with  heavy  iron  chains.  I  was  horrified!  I 
had  the  persistent  impression  of  passing 
through  an  experience  already  known  — 
"Where  have  I  seen  this  before?"  went 
over  and  over  in  my  mind,  and  I  felt  a 
dread  that  seemed  the  forewarning  of  some 
personal  danger  to  myself.  I  was  so  very 
near  such  terrible  and  hopeless  suffering. 
What  kept  me  from  stepping  into  that 
stream  of  whip-driven,  helpless  people? 

"Who  are  they?"  I  asked  Marie. 

"They  are  Galician  Jews  whom  the 
Government  is  transporting  into  Siberia." 

"But  why?" 

"Because  the  Russians  don't  trust  Jews. 
Whole  villages  and  towns  in  Galicia  are 
emptied  and  taken  to  Siberia  by  etapes  — 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

part  of  the  way  by  marches,  part  in  bag- 
gage cars." 

"In  this  heat?"  I  exclaimed.  "But  hun- 
dreds must  die!" 

"  Not  hundreds  —  thousands,"  Marie 
replied. 

"Does  it  do  any  good?" 

"No.  But  this  present  Government  is 
very  reactionary  and  the  persecution  of  the 
Jews  is  part  of  its  programme.  You  know, 
it  is  always  under  the  reactionary  Govern- 
ment, which  is  pro-German,  that  the  po- 
groms take  place." 

We  had  got  into  a  droshky  and  were 
.  driving  through  city  streets.    Women  from 
the  country  were  bringing  in  milk.   Peo- 
ple   seemed   to  be  walking   about  freely 
enough. 

The  Jews  with  their  bowed  necks  seemed 
far  away  —  as  though,  ufter  all,  I  had  read 
about  them  in  a  book.  Could  I  have  el- 
bowed them  and  smelt  them  only  a  few 
minutes  ago? 

I  was  in  Russia.  How  sweet  the  morning 
air  was!  We  were  climbing  a  cobble-stoned 
hill.  Institutska  Oulitza.  Here  we  are!  And 
we  stopped  at  the  Tchedesky  Pension. 

Good-bye  for  now.  Armf uls  of  love  from 

RUTH. 
[  12] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

July  5,  1915: 
Darlingest  Mother  and  Dad:  — 

We  have  been  in  Kiev  several  days.  Our 
passports  have  been  handed  in  to  the  police 
station  to  be  viseed  and  put  in  order  for  our 
return  trip  to  Bucharest.  They  say  a  hu- 
man being  in  Russia  is  made  of  body  and 
passport. 

Kiev  is  full  of  color.  It  is  framed  in  green 
trees  that  hide  the  ugliness  of  modern  build- 
ings and  seem  to  lift  the  gold  and  silver 
domes  of  the  churches  up  into  the  air.  And 
how  many  churches  there  are!  Kiev  is  in 
truth  a  holy  city.  Late  afternoon,  when  the 
sun  shines  through  the  dust  of  the  day  and 
envelops  the  city  in  golden  powder;  when 
the  gold  and  silver  domes  of  the  churches 
float  up  over  the  tree-tops  like  unsubstan- 
tial, gleaming  bubbles,  and  the  bells  fill  the 
air  with  lovely,  mellow  sounds,  —  then  I 
can  truly  say  I  have  felt  more  deeply  reli- 
gious than  ever  before  in  my  life.  Yet,  sud- 
denly, I  see  the  woman  who  climbs  Insti- 
tutska  Oulitza  every  evening  on  her  knees. 
She  is  dressed  in  black,  and  deeply  veiled, 
and  every  evening  she  climbs  the  hill  on 
her  knees.  At  first  I  thought  she  was  a 
cripple,  but,  on  arriving  at  the  top  of  the 
hill,  she  rose  to  her  feet  and  walked  away. 

[  13 1 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

"What  is  she  doing?"  I  asked  Marie. 

"Oh,  a  penance,  probably,  that  the 
Church  has  imposed  on  her." 

And  then  the  churches  and  their  domes 
grow  almost  hateful  to  me.  I  think  of  the 
Russian  peasants  with  their  foreheads  in 
the  dust,  and  the  greasy,  long-haired 
priests  I  see  on  the  streets. 

Yet  I  don't  know  —  perhaps  the  priests 
don't  really  matter.  After  all,  there  must 
be  something  in  the  people's  hearts  —  a 
belief  —  an  idealism  —  a  faith  in  God  that 
keeps  them  loving  Russia,  dreaming  for  her, 
and  able  to  dream  again  after  they've  seen 
their  dreams  trampled  on.  No,  the  priests 
and  their  autocracy  don't  matter.  The 
people  believe,  and  that's  the  important 
thing. 

We  went  out  yesterday  afternoon  to  the 
Lavra  —  the  stronghold  of  Black  Russia. 
It  is  a  monastery  on  the  edge  of  the  town, 
overlooking  the  Dnieper  and  flanked  with 
battlemented  walls  to  withstand  the  at- 
tacks  of  the  infidels  in  olden  times.  From 
all  over  Russia  and  the  Balkans  pilgrims 
go  there  to  visit  the  catacombs,  where 
many  church  saints  are  buried,  their  bodies 
miraculously  preserved  under  red  and  gold 
clothes  —  so  the  priests  say. 

[  H] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

The  road  leading  to  it  passed  the  bar- 
racks, where  we  saw  young  recruits  drill- 
ing. They  were  learning  to  walk,  and  their 
arms  swung  stiffly  and  self-consciously, 
and  their  legs  bent  at  the  knees  and 
straightened  again  like  the  wooden  legs  of 
mechanical  toys.  As  they  marched,  they 
sang  wonderful  Russian  soldier  songs. 
They  appeared  to  be  about  twenty-three 
or  twenty-four,  as  though  they  had  got 
their  growth,  and  were  tall  and  broad- 
shouldered  —  not  at  all  like  the  batch  of 
Austrian  prisoners  we  passed  a  few  min- 
utes later,  and  who  looked  like  pathetic, 
bewildered  children,  beardless  for  the  most 
part,  and  in  uniforms  too  large  for  them. 
They  shuffled  along  in  a  cloud  of  gray  dust 
under  a  metallic  sun.  Some  were  slightly 
wounded  in  the  head  or  arm,  and  were  sup- 
ported by  their  comrades.  As  I  passed,  I 
encountered  certain  eyes  —  frank,  gray 
eyes  that  reminded  me  of  Morris.  The 
long,  white,  dusty  road  became  tragic  to 
me,  with  the  prisoners  in  their  worn  blue 
uniforms,  and  those  who  were  about  to  die, 
singing  in  the  distance. 

We  met  bullock-carts  crawling  into 
town,  coming  from  distant  villages,  with 
fresh  vegetables  for  the  markets.  The 

I  IS] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

peasants  walked  by  the  oxen,  prodding 
them  with  short  sticks.  There  seem  to  be 
so  many  men  here  of  military  age,  yet  not 
in  the  army.  It  is  n't  like  other  countries, 
where  every  one  but  the  Jews  is  in  uni- 
form. Russia  has  so  many  men.  They  say 
five  million  more  could  easily  be  raised  if 
they  had  the  officers  and  ammunition. 

We  reached  a  high  plaster  wall,  with  little 
booths  built  under  its  shadows,  where  pil- 
grims bought  souvenirs  of  the  Lavra  — 
gaudy  ikons,  colored  handkerchiefs  and 
shawls,  beads  and  baskets. 

A  group  of  pilgrims  entered  the  gate  in 
front  of  us,  all  from  the  same  village,  evi- 
dently, for  the  women's  dresses  resembled 
each  other's  in  cut  and  embroidery,  and 
a  few  of  the  younger  women's  were  even 
dyed  the  same  color,  as  often  happens  in 
wool  of  the  same  shearing.  In  spite  of  the 
heat,  the  men  wore  sheepskin  coats  and 
fur  caps,  and  the  women's  skirts  were  thick 
with  petticoats.  Some  of  the  women  led 
children  by  the  hand;  others  carried  babies 
in  their  arms,  poor  little  mites,  with  faces 
covered  with  sores,  and  eyes  red  and  blink- 
ing as  though  they  were  going  blind.  They 
all  bent  and  kissed  the  hand  of  the  priest 
who  sold  candles  under  the  covered  arched 
[  16] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

gateway,  and  then  they  passed  into  the 
open  square  surrounded  by  the  monastery 
walls.  There  was  a  sort  of  garden  here;  all 
the  grass  worn  off  by  the  countless  pilgrims 
who  had  visited  the  shrine,  but  with  trees  in 
whose  shade  the  peasants  rested  when  their 
sins  had  been  forgiven.  Some  lay  curled  up 
on  the  ground,  fast  asleep;  others  sat  with 
their  legs  spread  comfortably  apart,  eating 
bread  and  meat;  and  others  drank  thirstily 
from  the  well,  or  let  the  water  run  over 
their  tired  feet. 

Facing  us  was  the  church  with  its  gold 
domes  blindingly  bright  against  the  blue 
sky.  We  followed  the  pilgrims  and  entered 
the  chapel,  where  everything  suddenly 
grew  hushed  and  dark,  with  a  strange  odor 
—  a  mixture  of  thick,  sweet  incense  and 
melting  candle  grease,  and  smelly,  per- 
spiring peasants. 

The  pilgrims  bought  candles  and  lighted 
them,  and  knelt  on  the  flagging  before  the 
altar.  Behind  an  elaborate  railing  the 
lustrous  jewels  and  gold  of  the  vessels  and 
crucifixes  glowed  richly  in  the  dim  light. 
Priests  in  gorgeous  vestments  were  going 
through  some  church  ceremony.  Their 
deep  chanting  filled  the  church.  They 
knelt  and  rose,  and  finally,  by  a  mechanical 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

contrivance,  something  was  raised  in  an 
inner  shrine,  and  a  priest  took  off  a  cloth 
of  crimson  and  gold,  and  uncovered  a 
wonderful  gold  cup  encrusted  with  jewels. 
I  leaned  against  a  pillar,  watching  the 
kneeling  peasants,  and  over  their  bent 
backs  the  mystery  and  richness  of  the 
altar  glowing  with  jewels  and  only  half 
disclosed  by  the  tiny  pointed  candle 
flames  flickering  in  the  darkness.  The 
Lavra  is  one  of  the  two  richest  monaster- 
ies in  Russia.  Its  wealth  is  fathomless.  It 
has  lent  emperors  treasure  with  which  to 
fight  the  infidels,  and  on  returning  from 
holy  wars  the  emperors  have  brought  it 
back  to  the  church  increased  a  hundred 
fold  by  royal  gifts  of  jewels  and  loot. 

We  went  out  into  the  blinding  sunlight 
again,  and  down  a  long  flight  of  cloister 
steps  to  the  catacombs. 

A  priest  was  selling  bottles  of  a  white 
liquid. 

"What  is  it?  "Marie  asked. 

"Holy  water,"  the  priest  replied.  "  It  is 
not  for  your  kind."  But  he  took  the  ko- 
pecks of  an  old  peasant  woman.  "  Rub  it  on 
your  joints  and  it  will  cure  their  stiffness," 
he  said  to  her,  with  a  cynical  smile. 

Three  fat  priests  sat  at  the  entrance 

I  18] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

of  the  catacombs,  selling  different-sized 
candles.  The  very  poor  peasants,  who 
came  barefooted,  could  only  afford  the 
very  thin  tapers,  while  the  rich  villagers, 
with  heavy,  well-made  boots  and  much 
embroidery  on  their  clothes,  bought  candles 
as  thick  as  a  man's  thumb,  and  sometimes 
two  or  three  at  a  time,  which  they  held 
lighted  between  their  fingers. 

A  short,  fat  priest,  his  face  dripping  with 
perspiration,  led  us  through  the  cata- 
combs. He  would  wipe  the  sweat  out  of  his 
eyes  with  the  sleeve  of  his  dirty  gown,  and 
point  to  the  saints'  tombs  with  the  big  iron 
key  he  carried.  I  was  pressed  close  to  him 
by  the  crowd  of  peasants  behind.  The  smell 
of  his  greasy  body  and  the  powder  of  dan- 
druff from  his  long  hair  on  the  shoulders  of 
his  gown,  the  malicious  way  he  looked  at 
me  as  though  to  say,  "You  and  I  know 
that  what  I  'm  saying  is  rot,  but  it  must  be 
said  to  them"  —  it  was  indescribably  dis- 
gusting. 

We  wound  through  narrow,  dungeon- 
like  passages  with  the  cold,  damp  smell  of 
an  unused  cellar.  Now  and  then,  through 
barred  windows  in  the  stone  walls,  I  caught 
glimpses  of  tall  forms  lying  in  a  row, 
covered  with  dingy  red  and  gold  cloths. 

[  19] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

"Here  lie  nine  brothers  who  lived  for 
twenty  years  in  this  cell.  Their  only  food 
was  bread  and  water  three  times  a  week. 
As  you  see,  they  had  no  room  to  stand  up- 
right in,  and  were  always  pressed  close  to 
each  other." 

The  peasants  peered  through  the  bars 
wonderingly. 

We  passed  a  body  stretched  out  on  a 
stone  ledge. 

"This  holy  saint  cured  the  blind,"  the 
priest  continued  in  a  sing-song  voice.  "He 
lived  in  a  cell  too  small  to  lie  down  in.  For 
twenty-two  years  he  never  opened  his 
mouth.  His  body,  like  the  bodies  of  all 
the  holy  saints  in  these  catacombs,  is  pre- 
served without  a  sign  of  decay  under  this 
cloth."  A  peasant  woman  lifted  her  little 
boy  up  to  kiss  the  edge  of  the  dirty  red 
pall.  The  pale  flame  of  her  candle  flick- 
ered and  the  melted  wax  dripped  on  to  the 
cloth.  The  woman  wiped  it  off  quickly, 
and  glanced  in  a  frightened  way  at  the 
priest.  But  he  turned  away  indifferently 
and  went  on. 

We  saw  the  bust  of  a  man  buried  to  his 
arm-pits  in  the  floor.  I  would  have  stum- 
bled over  him,  but  the  priest  caught  my 
arm. 

[20] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

"This  is  a  holy  saint,  who,  for  twenty- 
five  years,  stood  as  you  see  him,  buried  in 
the  earth  to  above  his  waist.  He  never 
spoke  and  only  ate  bread  and  water  twice 
a  week." 

I  looked  at  the  peasants.  Their  faces 
were  scared  and  white.  A  few  hung  back 
with  a  morbid  curiosity. 

"Come,  come,"  the  priest  called  impa- 
tiently. "Keep  together.  Some  get  lost 
here  and  never  get  out  again." 

I  had  heard  of  three  pretty  peasant  girls 
who  had  mysteriously  disappeared  in  the 
catacombs. 

"Ouf!"  The  priest  unlocked  an  iron 
door  and  we  came  squinting  out  into  the 
daylight  again.  He  held  the  door  open  and 
mopped  his  face  as  we  filed  past  him,  snuff- 
ing our  candles.  The  pilgrims  kept  theirs. 

Outside,  some  of  the  peasants  clustered 
about  the  priest  and  asked  him  questions. 
As  I  glanced  back  over  my  shoulder,  I  saw 
the  circle  of  round,  inquiring  faces  with 
their  look  of  unbounded  confidence. 

We  went  around  back  of  the  monastery 
to  an  open  plateau  overlooking  the  Dnieper. 
The  river  curved  like  a  blue  ribbon,  and  we 
could  see  the  three  pontoon  bridges  for 
"military  reasons."  On  the  low  bank  op- 

[21  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

posite  were  the  soldiers'  white  tents  laid 
out  in  regular  squares.  A  ferry-boat  was 
carrying  some  soldiers  across  the  river. 
The  sun  flashed  on  the  sentries'  bayonets 
along  the  bank. 

I  heard  the  whine  of  a  hand-organ.  An 
armless  beggar  was  turning  the  crank  of  an 
organ  with  his  bare  feet.  The  plateau  was 
fairly  alive  with  beggars,  hopping  about 
in  the  dust  like  fleas.  Some  were  armless; 
others  legless.  They  swung  along  at  our 
heels  on  long,  muscular  arms,  with  leather 
on  the  palms  of  their  hands,  or  dragged  dis- 
torted, paralyzed  bodies  that  tried  to  stand 
upright  by  our  sides. 

In  the  white,  hot  sunlight  squatted  an 
old  man  with  a  white,  pointed  beard  so 
long  that  it  lay  out  on  the  dust  in  front  of 
him.  In  his  arms  he  held  a  book  done  up 
in  red  cloth.  He  was  blind.  If  you  put  a 
coin  in  a  tin  cup  he  wore  round  his  neck,  he 
would  undo  his  book  and  open  it,  and  by 
divine  inspiration  read  the  holy  words  of 
the  page  in  front  of  him. 

A  row  of  seven  blind  women  lined  the 
exit.  They  began  to  whine  as  we  ap- 
proached, and  stretched  out  their  hands 
gropingly.  The  eyes  of  one  woman  had 
completely  disappeared  as  though  they  had 

[22] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

been  knotted  up  and  pulled  back  into  her 
head.  Another's  bulged  like  a  dead  fish's, 
with  that  dull,  bluish  look  in  them.  An- 
other's lids  were  closed  and  crusted  with 
sores,  flies  continuously  creeping  over 
them,  but  apparently  she  was  indifferent. 
The  seven  blind  women  sat  in  rags  and 
filth.  Shall  I  ever  forget  them  in  the 
burning  sunlight,  with  their  terrible  eyes 
and  greedy  fingers  and  the  whine  of  their 
voices  merging  into  the  tune  of  the  hand- 
organ  ? 

When  we  left  the  monastery,  a  group  of 
wounded  soldiers  were  just  entering.  With 
them  was  a  woman  in  a  man's  uniform. 
Her  hair  was  curly  and  short,  and  her  chin 
pointed.  Her  feet  looked  ridiculously  small 
in  the  heavy,  high,  soldier's  boots,  and  in 
spite  of  a  strut  her  knees  knocked  together 
in  an  unmistakably  feminine  manner.  But 
the  men  treated  her  quite  as  one  of  them- 
selves. One  soldier,  who  had  had  his  leg 
cut  off  up  to  the  thigh,  supported  himself 
by  her  shoulder.  I  have  seen  several  wo- 
men soldiers  in  Kiev,  and  they  say  there 
are  many  in  the  Russian  army. 

It  is  strange,  seeing  these  things  without 
Peter.  I  expect  to  go  back  to  Bucharest 
with  Marie  and  Janchu  within  a  week. 

[23  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

There  Peter  will  meet  us.   I  wish  he  were 
here  now. 

So  much  love,  my  dearests,  every  day 
and  every  night  from 

RUTH. 

July  20, 1915. 
Darlingest  Mother  and  Dad  :  — 

Before  dawn  this  morning  I  was  wakened 
by  a  shuffling  noise  from  the  street.  It  was 
not  soldiers  marching.  There  was  no 
rhythm  to  it.  Marie  and  I  went  to  the 
window  and  looked  out. 

Behind  the  dark  points  of  the  poplars,  in 
the  convent  garden  across  the  street,  the 
sky  was  growing  light.  The  birds  were  be- 
ginning to  sing.  The  air  was  sweet  and 
cool  after  the  night.  And  down  the  hill  was 
passing  a  stream  of  people,  guarded  on 
either  side  by  soldiers  with  bayonets.  I 
rubbed  the  sleep  from  my  eyes  to  look  more 
closely,  for  there  was  something  ominous 
in  the  snail's  pace  of  the  procession. 

They  were  Jews,  waxen-faced,  their  thin 
bodies  bent  with  fatigue.  Some  had  taken 
their  shoes  off,  and  limped  along  bare- 
footed over  the  cobble-stones.  Others 
would  have  fallen  if  their  comrades  had  not 
held  them  up.  Once  or  twice  a  man  lurched 

[24] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

out  of  the  procession  as  though  he  was 
drunk  or  had  suddenly  gone  blind,  and  a 
soldier  cuffed  him  back  into  line  again. 
Some  of  the  women  carried  babies  wrapped 
in  their  shawls.  There  were  older  children 
dragging  at  the  women's  skirts.  The  men 
carried  bundles  knotted  up  in  their  clothes. 
They  stumbled  and  pitched  along,  as  if 
they  had  no  control  over  their  skinny  bod- 
ies; as  if  after  another  step  they  would  all 
suddenly  collapse  and  fall  down  on  their 
faces  like  a  crowd  of  scarecrows  with  a 
strong  wind  behind  them.  Some  had  their 
eyes  closed;  others  stared  ahead  with  their 
faces  like  dirty  gray  masks,  with  huge  bony 
noses  and  sunken  eyes.  The  procession 
showed  no  sign  of  coming  to  an  end.  It 
crawled  on  and  on,  and  a  stench  rose  from 
it  that  poisoned  the  morning  air.  The 
sound  of  the  shuffling  feet  seemed  to  fill 
the  universe. 

"Where  are  they  going?"  —  I  whispered 
to  Marie. 

"To  the  Detention  Camp  here.  They 
come  from  Galicia,  and  Kiev  is  one  of  the 
stopping-places  on  their  way  to  Siberia." 

"  Do  they  walk  all  the  way  here  ? " 

"Usually.  Let's  shut  the  window  and 
keep  out  the  smell." 

[25] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

I  went  back  to  bed.  I  felt  so  safe,  with 
Janchu  sleeping  in  his  crib  in  the  corner. 
The  creeping,  submissive  procession  seemed 
a  dream.  It  was  incredible  to  think  of 
only  the  wall  of  a  house  separating  our 
security  from  those  hundreds  of  fainting, 
persecuted  Jews ! 

We  are  still  here  —  waiting  for  our  pass- 
ports to  be  returned.  Of  course  no  mail 
from  you  has  been  forwarded  to  me  here, 
as  Peter  is  hourly  expecting  me  back.  I  am 
cut  off  from  all  I  love  most  in  the  world. 
The  Russian  frontier  takes  on  a  new  signifi- 
cance once  you're  inside  it.  I  hope  you 
don't  forget  me.  Sometimes  you  seem 
millions  of  miles  away  —  and  then  I  look 
in  my  heart  and  find  you  there.  I  love  you. 

RUTH. 

July  25,  1915. 

The  Tchedesky  Pension  is  full  of  Poles  — 
refugees  from  Poland  and  the  wooded  Rus- 
sian provinces. 

Pan  Tchedesky  himself  was  formerly  an 
enormously  wealthy  landowner  near  Kiev. 
He  loves  to  tell  how  he  drove  through 
town  behind  six  white  horses.  Gambling 
ruined  him,  and  to  pay  his  debts  he  sold 
one  acre  after  another  to  the  Jews,  who  cut 

[26] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

down  the  timber  and  ruined  the  land.  Of 
course,  where  there  are  no  trees  the  rain- 
fall is  scarce.  The  crops  dried  up,  and 
finally  Pan  Tchedesky  and  his  wife  and 
children  were  forced  into  the  city.  There 
remained  enough  of  his  former  property  to 
start  a  pension.  The  rooms  are  full  of  the 
remains  of  his  splendor  —  heavy  gilt 
mirrors,  thick,  flowered  carpets,  a  Louis 
XVI  set  in  the  drawing-room,  upholstered 
in  faded  blue  brocade. 

Pan  Tchedesky  is  a  memorial  of  his  own 
life;  a  relic  suggesting  an  earlier  opulence. 
He  is  big-framed,  but  his  flesh  is  shrunken, 
as  though  the  wind  of  conceit  were  oozing 
out  of  him  day  by  day.  His  cheeks  and 
stomach  hang  flabbily.  His  blond  mus- 
tache is  getting  thin  and  discloses  his  full, 
sensual  lips.  His  hands  are  thick  and  soft, 
always  stained  with  nicotine.  He  lives  in 
constant  terror  of  his  wife,  and  all  the 
pockets  of  his  coats  are  burned  full  of  holes 
from  his  hiding  his  cigarettes  in  them  when 
he  thinks  he  hears  his  wife  coming.  I  have 
never  seen  her,  but  she  is  the  invisible 
force  that  keeps  the  pension  running,  and 
controls  her  husband  by  her  knowledge  of 
his  past  failures. 

"My  wife  is  an  executive  woman  —  very 

1 27] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

executive,"  he  says,  shaking  his  head  sor- 
rowfully. 

The  bills  are  made  out  by  her.  Occa- 
sionally he  intercepts  the  maid  carrying 
her  back  the  money,  and  extracts  enough 
to  pay  a  small  per  cent  of  his  I O  U's,  which 
allows  him  to  continue  gambling  with  his 
guests.  His  moist,  soft  fingers  tremble  as 
he  holds  the  cards,  and  he  infuriates  every 
one  by  his  erratic  bidding. 

A  guest  slams  his  hand  down  on  the 
table  and  calls  Tchedesky  a  name. 

Tchedesky' s  whitish,  livid  cheeks  shake, 
and  his  lips  open  uncertainly.  But  he  must 
be  discreet.  He  does  not  dare  offend  his 
guests,  for  he  wants  to  play  with  them 
again,  and  he  must  not  let  his  wife  know 
that  he  is  gambling.  So  he  begs  pardon  in 
a  whisper. 

There  is  a  pretty  maid  in  the  pension 
called  Antosha.  She  has  light,  frowzy  hair, 
and  a  round,  full  figure.  The  other  maids 
are  jealous  of  her.  When  she  dresses  up  to 
wait  on  the  table  at  dinner  at  three  o'clock, 
she  wears  a  cheap  pink  silk  waist  and  long 
gilt  earrings,  and  two  or  three  little  rings 
with  blue  and  red  stones.  Her  wages  are 
fifteen  roubles  a  month.  One  day  I  saw 
Tchedesky  kissing  her  on  the  neck.  Very 
[28  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

white  and  shaken,  he  came  to  me  after- 
wards and  begged  me  to  say  nothing  about 
it  to  any  one. 

He  has  terrible  scenes  with  his  wife,  who 
is  hysterical  and  grows  rigid.  He  stays  up 
with  her  all  night  and  uses  it  as  an  excuse 
to  get  a  morphine  injection  for  his  own  ner- 
vousness next  day.  He  is  quite  courteous 
and  frankly  loves  women  and  food  and 
money.  I  feel  as  though,  if  I  poked  my 
finger  into  him,  he  would  burst  like  a  rotten 
potato. 

There  is  the  Morowski  family  from  near 
Cracow.  Pan  Morowski's  brother  is  in  the 
Austrian  Chamber  of  Deputies,  but  he  and 
his  family  are  Russian  subjects.  They  have 
been  here  in  Kiev  for  some  months  now. 
For  seven  days  he  and  his  eldest  daughter 
remained  while  the  Russians  and  Austrians 
fought  for  their  farm.  The  rest  of  the  fam- 
ily had  been  sent  into  Kiev,  but  these  two 
had  hoped  that  by  staying  they  might  pre- 
serve their  farm  from  being  plundered  and 
burned.  The  Austrians  had  sacked  their 
neighbors'  houses.  The  Austrian  officers' 
wives  had  followed  in  the  wake  of  the  army 
and  had  taken  the  linen  from  the  closets, 
and  the  ball-gowns,  and  the  silver  —  even 
the  pictures  off  the  walls. 

[29] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

Lovely  weather  it  was.  The  girl  said 
you  would  hardly  realize  there  was  war, 
sometimes.  The  gardener  would  go  out 
and  straighten  the  trampled  flowers.  The 
carts  of  wounded  would  pass  regularly, 
stopping  occasionally  for  water  or  tea. 
They  would  say  the  fighting  had  passed 
on.  And  then,  suddenly,  the  crack  and 
boom  would  approach  again,  shaking  the 
house  walls  —  the  little  uncurling  puffs 
of  smoke  against  the  blue  sky  —  the  gray- 
blue  uniformed  Austrians  hurrying  past  in 
retreat.  No  carts  of  wounded  any  more. 
There  was  too  much  hurry  to  bother  about 
the  wounded. 

Russians  in  possession  again,  and  Rus- 
sian instead  of  Austrian  officers  quartered 
at  their  house.  How  much  more  polite  the 
Russians  were  —  so  much  more  gallant 
and  kind-hearted!  They  did  n't  treat  you 
as  though  you  were  a  servant  —  "Do  this. 
Do  that."  They  brought  some  of  their 
wounded  to  the  farm,  and  Miss  Morowski 
helped  nurse  them. 

But  at  last  the  father  and  daughter  had 
been  obliged  to  leave  with  the  Russians. 
How  furious  the  Russians  had  been  —  so 
depressed  and  discouraged  when  the  order 
came  to  retreat.  There  had  been  no  fight- 
[  301 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

ing  round  there  for  several  days,  and  sud- 
denly the  news  came  that  the  whole  army 
was  retreating.  Why?  They  said  there 
was  no  ammunition.  So  the  father  and 
daughter  left  their  property  in  the  care  of 
the  gardener  and  his  wife,  who  were  too 
old  to  move.  How  terrible  it  had  been  to 
abandon  this  ground  that  so  many  Rus- 
sians had  died  to  win!  No  ammunition. 
Waste  —  mismanagement  —  graft. 

Those  in  Petrograd  should  think  more  of 
their  country  and  less  of  their  own  pockets. 
The  unquestioning  courage  of  the  simple 
Russian  soldiers!  Every  one  ready  to  die 
—  and  yet  nothing  to  back  them  up.  It 
was  disheartening. 

"The  Russians  gave  us  a  place  in  a  cart, 
and  we  left  in  utter  confusion  —  soldiers, 
motor-cars,  cattle,  wounded,  with  the  Aus- 
trian cannon  rumbling  behind  us." 

"Were  you  frightened?"  I  asked.  We 
were  speaking  French  together. 

"Not  so  frightened  as  sad.  I  was  leaving 
my  home.  All  my  life  I  had  spent  there 
excepting  for  a  few  weeks  in  the  winter 
when  mother  used  to  take  us  to  Cracow 
for  the  balls.  I  hated  to  leave  my  beautiful 
party  dresses  hanging  up  in  the  closets.  I 
know  some  Austrian  woman  will  wear 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

them.  And  I  can't  bear  to  think  of  our 
house  burned!  We  have  had  such  jolly 
times  there,  hunting  and  riding  and  visit- 
ing the  neighbors.  You  don't  know  life  on 
a  Polish  estate,  do  you?  I  can  tell  you 
there  is  nothing  so  charming  in  the  world." 

Pan  Morowski  is  a  handsome,  full- 
blooded  man,  and  plays  bridge  all  day 
either  in  the  pension  drawing-room  or  at 
the  club. 

His  wife  is  small  and  nervous,  and  you 
can  see  that  her  main  object  in  life  is  to 
marry  off  her  daughters  well.  She  has  three 
daughters,  pretty,  fresh  girls,  who  are  fond 
of  reading,  and  perfectly  willing  to  read 
only  what  their  brothers  permit  them. 
Every  day  I  run  across  one  or  two  of  them 
in  the  circulating  library  in  the  town,  and 
always  try  to  get  them  to  take  out  a  for- 
bidden book.  They  are  convinced  that 
Bourget  has  sounded  the  depths  of  femi- 
nine psychology.  "Isn't  it  mean! "they 
cry.  "If  only  our  brothers  would  let  us 
read  more  of  his  wonderful  books!" 

Sometimes,  in  the  evening,  we  sit  out  on 
the  balcony,  and  the  Morowski  boys  come 
in  to  talk  to  us. 

"Are  n't  you  ashamed  to  treat  your 
sisters  in  this  Oriental  way?"  I  ask. 

[32] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

"The  less  they  know  till,  after  they've 
married,  the  better  for  them.  A  young  girl 
should  be  pure  in  every  thought."  And 
then  they  begin  to  make  love  to  us. 

There  are  two  brothers  who  have  taken 
refuge  in  the  Tchedesky  pension,  with  a 
collection  of  servants.  Their  house  was 
burned  under  their  eyes,  and  their  property 
is  now  in  the  Austrians'  hands.  The  eldest 

brother,  Count  S ,  is  very  handsome 

and  aristocratic,  with  a  cherished  gray 
mustache  carefully  twisted  upward,  and 
soft,  brown  eyes,  which  he  uses  with  ad- 
vantage. Evidently  the  Romantic  poets 
influenced  his  youth,  and  he  has  found  the 
melancholy  Byronic  traditions  the  most 
effective  for;  his  ends,  since  he  continues 
the  attitude. 

"He  is  very  sad,"  his  brother  whispers  a 
dozen  times  a  day.  "Of  course  his  experi- 
ences these  past  months  have  been  fright- 
ful for  one  of  his  nature.  I  am  not  so  sensi- 
tive. But  he  has  always  been  this  way. 
Sometimes  I'm  afraid.  Our  other  brother 
died  insane." 

Count  S affects  to  believe  that  the 

Germans  can  do  anything. 

"They  are  devils!  What  can  we  do 
against  them?"  he  cries  at  dinner,  combing 

[33] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

his  mustache  with  the  little  tortoise-shell 
comb  he  carries  in  his  vest. 

He  never  forgets  his  soda  tablets  after 
eating. 

His  younger  brother  is  round  and  red- 
faced,  with  twinkly  blue  eyes.  He  limps, 
and  follows  his  elder  brother  round  like  a 
faithful  dog.  The  slightest  thing  amuses 
him.  Indeed,  he  laughs  at  nothing  at  all. 
He  kept  the  books  on  his  brother's  estates 
and  he  brought  them  with  him  in  his  flight. 
They  are  his  pride  and  joy.  Sometimes  he 
brings  them  into  the  drawing-room  after 
supper,  with  photographs  of  the  property. 
There  are  pictures  of  boar  hunts,  and 
huntsmen  on  horseback,  with  wolf-hounds 
in  the  snow,  and  the  tenants  merry-making 
and  the  house  and  different  sections  of  the 
property,  and  the  horses  and  dogs  and 
cattle.  I  look  at  them  night  after  night. 
They  love  to  live  over  again  their  life  in 
telling  me  about  it. 

Among  the  servants  with  the  S • 

brothers  is  an  old  woman,  a  kindly,  slack 
one,  who  rarely  goes  out,  but  observes  the 
passing  life  from  her  windows.  She  wears 
a  short,  loose  wrapper  and  petticoat,  and 
scuffs  about  in  list  slippers. 

Then  there  is  a  young  girl  with  shy  eyes 

[  34] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

and  quiet,  womanlike  actions.  We  often 
see  her  peeking  through  a  crack  in  the  door 
when  Janchu  is  naughty. 

And  then  there  is  Sigmund,  a  sly,  goody- 
goody  child  of  six  or  seven,  whom  the  old 
woman  treats  like  a  son,  and  whom  the 

eldest  S brother  has  adopted  as  his 

heir.  He  plays  with  Janchu.  The  brothers 
adore  him  and  take  him  to  Koupietsky 
Park,  and  watch  him  when  he  plays  in  the 
pension  garden.  We  have  heard  that  he  is 

Count  S 's  illegitimate  child,  and  that 

the  old  woman  is  his  mother.  It  seems 
quite  probable  when  you  think  of  the  life 
on  a  big  Polish  estate  —  the  loneliness, 
etc.  These  three  people  live  together  in 
one  room.  The  samovar  is  always  boiling 
and  some  one  is  always  drinking  tea  there. 
The  brothers  share  an  adjoining  room,  but 
they  are  usually  with  those  in  there,  who 
constitute  all  that  remains  of  their  former 
habits. 

Pan  A lives  in  the  pension,  too.  I  am 

told  that  he  is  typical  of  a  certain  kind  of 
Pole.  He  is  a  turfman,  with  carefully 
brushed  side-whiskers  dyed  coal-black,  and 
hawk-like  eyes.  He  wears  check  suits,  and 
cravats  with  a  little  diamond  horse-pin. 
His  legs  are  bowed  like  a  jockey's.  He  was 

[35  ij 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

the  overseer  of  a  big  Polish  estate  and  has 
made  a  fortune  by  cards  and  horses.  His 
stable  is  famous.  He  has  raced  from  Petro- 
grad  to  London.  Now,  of  course,  his  horses 
have  been  requisitioned,  and  he  lives  by 
his  cards.  Cards  are  a  serious  business  to 
him.  He  will  not  play  in  a  room  where  he 
is  apt  to  be  interrupted.  Occasionally,  his 
wife,  a  hard-faced  woman  with  tight  lips, 
comes  to  the  pension,  between  the  visits 
she  makes  to  friends  in  the  country.  Pan 

A pays  no  attention  to  her  except  to 

treat  her  with  an  exaggerated  politeness  at 
table;  and  she,  on  her  side,  concentrates 
on  the  young  men  in  the  pension.  After 
dinner  he  always  hands  her  a  cigarette  first, 
out  of  his  massive  gold  case,  encrusted 
with  arms  and  monograms  and  jewels. 

"It's  curious,  is  it  not?"  he  says,  hand- 
ing me  the  case.  "My  friends  have  put  on 
their  arms  and  monograms  and  mounted 
the  jewels  as  souvenirs." 

Generally,  he  goes  to  the  Cafe  Francois 
with  a  tall  blonde  woman,  the  wife  of  an 
Austrian.  Her  husband  and  son  are  fighting 
in  the  Austrian  army,  but  she  came  to  Kiev 
with  the  Russian  General  who  occupied  her 
town.  Now  her  protector  is  at  the  front, 
and  she  goes  about  with  A . 

[36] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

A is  cynical.  Women  and  horses 

and  cards  make  up  his  life.  In  a  conversa- 
tion he  feels  his  audience  as  if  it  were  a  new 
horse  he  is  learning  to  ride.  He  goes  as  near 
the  danger  line  as  he  dares.  He  has  no 
breeding,  and  spends  his  money  extrava- 
gantly. 

K ,  the  last  comer  at  the  pension,  is 

a  journalist.  He  has  no  race  or  polish,  and 
the  rest  rather  despise  him  for  having  none 
of  their  landed  traditions.  He  is  lean  and 
brown,  with  a  razor-like  jaw  and  a  twisted, 
sardonic  expression  to  his  lips.  His  face  is 
cruel.  At  Warsaw,  where  he  was  working, 
he  was  thrown  into  prison  time  after  time 
on  account  of  the  radical,  revolutionary 
character  of  his  articles.  He  is  well  known 
for  the  strong,  intellectual  quality  of  his 
work.  The  reactionaries  fear  him.  The 
slipshod  Russian  way  of  handling  things 
gets  on  his  nerves.  His  eyes  get  like  steel 
when  he  talks  about  it.  Russia's  corrup- 
tion and  the  German  advance  —  ammuni- 
tion willfully  miscarried  —  guns  sent  to 
the  front  without  ammunition,  and  am- 
munition sent  that  does  n?t  fit;  and  the 
soldiers  obliged  to  fight  with  their  naked 
fists! 

He  has  sent  me  Chamberlin's  "Genesis 

[37] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

of  the  Fourteenth  Century.'*  We  discuss 
it  after  dinner.  It's  interesting,  though 
Chamberlin  sets  forth  an  idea  he  tries  to 
prove  at  all  costs.  Read  it,  if  you  have  n't 
already. 

How  terribly  I  miss  you.  Why  do  I  write 
of  Pan  Tchedesky  and  the  Morowskis 
when  I  only  want  to  be  telling  you  how  I 
love  you  and  miss  you?  But  it  is  almost 
unbearable  to  write  you  a  love-letter.  So 
many  miles  are  between  us  and  so  many 
months  still  separate  us.  Over  a  year  more 
to  be  lived  through.  No.  I  must  keep  to 
decaying  Polish  gentlemen  and  exiled 
noblemen  and  trust  you  to  know  that  every 
word  in  this  letter  is  a  love-word  to  you, 
telling  you  I  hold  you  so  close  to  me  that 
you  are  one  with  me  in  everything  i  think 
or  do. 

July  27,  1915. 
Darllngest  Mother  and  Dad;  — 

It  is  very  hot,  and  food  is  unappetizing. 
The  drinking-water  must  be  boiled,  and  in- 
evitably we  drink  it  lukewarm.  It  never 
has  time  to  cool.  There  is  fruit  sold  on 
the  street,  but  we  are  warned  against  it 
on  account  of  cholera.  There  is  already 
cholera  and  typhus  reported  in  the  city. 

[  38  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

So  we  eat  thick  vegetable  soup  with  sour 
cream,  fried  bread  with  chopped  meat  in- 
side, cheese  noodles  with  sour  cream,  etc., 
all  Polish  cooking.  And  we  drink  kvass. 

"What  do  you  think  of  Bulgaria,  now?" 
Count  S asks  me  gloomily,  after  din- 
ner. 

"I  still  think  she  will  go  with  Russia," 
I  reply.  "In  every  Bulgarian  house  I've 
ever  been  in  there  is  the  picture  of  the  Czar 
liberator.  A  Bulgarian  regards  a  Russian  as 
of  his  own  blood.  Bulgaria  gave  Russia  her 
alphabet,  and  the  languages  are  much  the 
same:  only  the  Russian  is  richer  in  words 
and  expressions.  Why,  there  is  a  Bulgarian, 
General  Dimitrief,  holding  a  high  command 
in  the  Russian  army.  When  I  left  Bulgaria 
there  was  no  talk  of  her  going  with  Ger- 
many. 'We  will  never  go  with  Germany/ 
I've  heard  over  and  over." 

"But  there  is  a  strong  German  party?" 

"Yes,  and  they  're  being  paid  well.  If 
England  and  the  Entente  only  took  the 
trouble  to  understand  the  Balkans.  Ger- 
many has  sent  her  ablest  men  to  Sofia  with 
unlimited  credit.  The  English  representa- 
tives offend  by  their  snobbery." 

"Do  you  think  they'll  go  in  at  all?" 
S persists. 

[39] 


BLACK  RUSSIA' 

"Probably  they'll  be  forced  in,  in  the 
end.  But  the  people  don't  want  to  abandon 
their  neutrality.  They're  making  money. 
They're  recouping  after  the  Balkan  wars. 
Bulgaria  has  had  nothing  but  wars  and 
crises  for  the  last  five  years." 

"They  say  there  are  already  German 
officers  in  the  Bulgarian  army." 

"I  don't  believe  it's  so.  The  Bulgarians 
are  very  independent.  If  they  went  in  I 
think  they  would  command  their  own 
army." 

"But  this  war  is  not  conducted  along 
Balkan  war  lines,"  K said  amusedly. 

"No,"  I  agreed.  "You  know  more  about 
the  situation  now  than  I  do.  I  can't  even 
read  a  newspaper.  All  I  know  is  the  spirit 
of  Bulgaria  when  I  left." 

"Isn't  Bulgaria's  Government  auto- 
cratic enough  to  declare  war  without  con- 
sulting the  people?"  K continued. 

"Perhaps  —  unfortunately.  The  Bul- 
garians say,  'We  have  a  wonderful  consti- 
tution, if  the  Czar  would  only  use  it. ' ' 

"The  papers  to-day  already  speak  of 

Bulgaria's  treason  and  ingratitude,"  K 

observed. 

I  was  angry.  "In  Bulgaria,  some  think 
Russia  does  n't  want  them  to  go  in  on  the 

I  40  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

Entente  side.  They  think  Russia  wants  to 
make  a  Russian  lake  out  of  the  Black  Sea, 
and  a  Russian  province  out  of  Bulgaria. 
They  say  Russia  is  the  obstacle  to  their 
having  joined  the  Entente  months  ago." 

"She  will  go  with    Germany,"   Count 

S insisted  fatalistically.    "Everything 

is  going  Germany's  way." 

"No  — no  — no!"   I  cried. 

"Of  course  she  will  go  where  she  sees  her 
advantage,"  said  K 

"All  she  wants  is  to  fight  for  Macedonia 
before  the  close  of  the  war.  Certainly,  it 
is  n't  too  much  to  ask  if  she  allows  the 
English  and  Russians  to  cross  her  territory 
to  get  at  Turkey.  The  war  will  be  shortened 
by  months  if  she  goes  in  with  the  Entente, 
and  Turkey  in  Europe  will  be  finished." 

I  know  you'll  laugh,  Dad,  and  think 
my  pretentions  to  a  political  opinion  pre- 
sumptuous. My  hope  is  that  I'll  know 
more  when  I'm  older! 

Love  to  you  all.  Think  of  me,  won't  you  ? 
Don't  let  miles  make  any  difference. 

RUTH. 


II 

July  30. 

It  is  confirmed  that  Warsaw  has  fallen! 
Every  one  is  very  much  depressed.  What 
can  stop  the  Germans?  Some  one  speaks  of 
the  forts  of  Vilna  and  Grodno,  which  are 
supposed  to  be  impregnable.  But  what 
about  the  forts  on  the  Western  front? 
What  do  forts  amount  to  nowadays  ?  The 
strongest  walls  are  razed  by  the  Germans' 
big  guns! 

"The  Germans  do  just  as  they  like  — 
nothing  can  stop  them.  In  the  beginning 
the  Kaiser  said  he  would  sleep  at  Warsaw,'* 
Count  S says  gloomily. 

"And  he  said  he  would  dine  in  Paris," 
some  one  else  remarks. 

It  is  funny  how  much  pleasure  Count 
S takes  in  every  foot  of  land  the  Ger- 
mans capture.  When  he  talks  about  the 
war,  he  seems  to  take  a  perverse  pleasure 
in  accenting  their  inexhaustible  munitions 
and  men  and  the  perfection  of  their  whole 
military  organization.  "  We  have  men,  but 
we  are  children."  At  every  German  victory 
he  shakes  his  head.  " I  told  you  so."  "I've 
[42] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

said  from  the  first — "  "There  is  no  limit 
to  what  these  cochons  can  do."  He  seems 
glad  to  see  his  prophecies  come  true;  prob- 
ably, because  he  has  seen  his  own  security 
destroyed,  he  feels  the  safety  of  the  whole 
world  shaken.  A  hundred  times  he  has  said: 
"There  is  n't  a  foot  of  ground  that  belongs 
to  me  any  more.  For  a  man  of  my  age  it  is 
a  terrible  thing  to  see  your  life-work  wiped 
out  all  of  a  sudden."  Only  a  world  de- 
struction could  come  up  to  his  expecta- 
tions now. 

After  dinner,  in  the  drawing-room,  we 
spoke  about  the  fall  of  Warsaw.  What 
would  the  Germans  do  to  the  city?  Some 
spoke  of  German  frightfulness  in  Belgium. 

Pan  K thinks  Warsaw  will  be  treated 

leniently,  as  Germany  wishes  to  enlist  the 
German  sympathizers.  Still,  most  of  the 
Poles  in  the  pension  are  horrorstricken. 
They  see  the  Germans  marching  through 
the  streets,  and  they  see  the  flames  and 
shuddering  civilians.  I  can  see  the  Ger- 
mans' spiked  helmets  in  the  room. 

"The  English  must  start  an  offensive. 
England  lets  France  and  Russia  bleed  to 
death  before  she  sheds  her  own  blood." 
There  is  much  talk  of  England's  selfish- 
ness. 

[43 1 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

Something  is  wrong  somewhere.  Every 
one  seems  skeptical  about  the  Duma. 

I  wish  I  could  read  the  Russian  news- 
papers. 

I  feel  as  though  I  were  watching  a  fire  — 
a  neighbor's  house  burning  down.  I  am 
excited  and  curious.  Suddenly,  I  wonder 
how  far  the  flames  are  going  to  spread,  and 
I  feel  panicstricken.  Good-night,  dear  ones. 
You  in  New  England  seem  so  far  away 
from  this  European  fire.  -p 

July  30,  1915. 
Darlingest  Mother  and  Dad:  — 

To-day  I  went  to  the  Jewish  detention 
camp  with  the  wife  of  the  French  Consul 
here.  She  called  for  me  in  her  limousine. 
As  I  think  of  it  now,  it  was  all  so  strange  — 
the  smooth-running  car  with  two  men  on 
the  box,  and  ourselves  in  immaculate  white 
summer  dresses.  The  heat  was  intense, 
but  we  were  well  protected.  Through  the 
windows  we  saw  others  sweating  and  chok- 
ing in  the  dust  of  the  hot  streets. 

"I'm  afraid  I've  brought  you  here  on 

a  very  hot  morning,"  said  Mme.  C 

apologetically. 

In  spite  of  my  curiosity  I  believe  I  felt 
a  distaste  of  the  detention  camp  on  such  a 

[44] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

day.  A  crowd  is  always  depressing,  and 
doubly  so  in  the  heat.  But  we  stopped  at  a 
door  cut  in  a  high  board  fence,  and  passed 
by  the  sentinel  into  the  enclosure  where  the 
Jews  were  penned  in  awaiting  the  next 
stage  of  their  journey. 

Hundreds  of  faces  turned  toward  us; 
hundreds  of  eyes  watched  our  approach. 
There  were  old  men  with  long,  white,  pa- 
triarchal beards  flowing  over  their  dirty 
black  gowns;  there  were  younger  men  with 
peaked  black  caps  and  long  black  beards; 
and  there  were  women  who  had  pushed 
back  their  black  shawls  for  air,  and  who 
held  sore-eyed,  whining  babies  listlessly  on 
their  knees.  Bits  of  old  cloth  stretched  over 
poles  afforded  shade  to  some.  Others  tried 
to  get  out  of  the  burning  sun  by  huddling 
against  the  walls  of  the  tenements  that  en- 
closed the  yard  on  three  sides.  The  ground 
was  baked  hard  as  iron  and  rubbed  smooth 
by  the  shuffle  of  numberless  feet. 

As  we  approached,  the  Jews  rose  and 
bowed  low.  Then  they  settled  back  into 
their  former  immobility.  Some  stared  at  us 
vacantly;  others  lowered  their  eyelids  and 
rubbed  their  hands  together  softly,  with  a 
terrible  subservience.  If  we  brushed  close 
to  one,  he  cringed  like  a  dog  who  fears 

[45] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

a  kick.  Yellow,  parchment-like  faces,  all 
with  the  high-bridged,  curving  noses,  and 
the  black,  animal-like  eyes.  I  was  as  defin- 
itely separated  from  them  as  though  tangi- 
ble iron  bars  were  between  us.  We  seemed 
to  be  looking  at  each  other  across  a  great 
gulf.  "They  are  human  beings,"  I  said  to 
myself.  "  I  am  one  with  them."  But  their 
isolation  was  complete.  I  could  not  even 
begin  to  conceive  the  persecution  and  suf- 
fering of  ages  that  separated  us.  "All  peo- 
ple are  born  free  and  equal,"  indeed!  I 
turned  away. 

"This    camp    is    run    on    communistic 

principles,"  Mme.  C was  explaining. 

"The  Jewish  Ladies'  Benevolent  Society 
provides  a  certain  amount  of  meat  and 
vegetables  and  bread,  which  is  cooked  and 
served  by  the  Jews  themselves.  Here  is  the 
kitchen."  We  spoke  French  among  our- 
selves, which  seemed  to  put  us  farther  away 
from  the  dumb,  watchful  Jews  behind  us. 
"  If  it  was  n't  for  us,  they  would  starve.  The 
Government  allows  them  eight  kopecks  a 
day.  But  who  could  live  on  that?  Besides, 
most  of  the  Jews  here  pay  the  eight  kopecks 
to  the  overseer  to  avoid  his  displeasure. 
He  makes  a  good  revenue  out  of  the  blood 


money." 


[46] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

Two  rooms  in  one  of  the  houses  had  been 
converted  into  a  kitchen.  A  dozen  or  so 
Jewish  women  were  paring  and  cutting  up 
potatoes  and  cabbages  and  meat  into  huge 
soup-boilers.  They  were  stripped  to  their 
shirts,  and  their  bodies  were  drenched  with 
sweat.  They  curtsied  to  us  and  went  on 
preparing  dinner. 

A  blast  of  scorching  heat  puffed  out 
from  an  open  oven.  Two  women,  with  long 
wooden  handles  pulled  out  big  round  loaves 
of  black  bread  and  laid  them  on  a  shelf  to 
cool. 

The  warm  fragrance  of  cooking  attracted 
some  white-faced  Jewish  children.  They 
edged  into  the  kitchen  and  looked  up  at  the 
food,  their  eyes  impenetrable  and  glittering 
like  mica.  A  woman  cut  up  some  bread  and 
gave  them  each  a  piece,  and  they  slunk 
outdoors  again,  sucking  their  bread. 

"The  food  is  scientifically  proportioned 
to  give  the  greatest  possible  nutriment," 
Mme.  C said. 

We  went  out.  After  the  kitchen  heat  the 
air  of  the  courtyard  was  cool. 

"This  is  the  laundry.  A  certain  number 
of  the  Jews  here  wash  and  iron  the  others' 
clothes.  They  are  kept  as  clean  as  possi- 
ble." 

[47] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

The  laundry  was  gray  with  steam.  A 
dozen  or  so  women  were  bending  over 
wash  tubs.  Like  the  women  in  the  kitchen, 
they  were  stripped  to  their  shirts.  The  wet 
cloth  stuck  to  their  sweating  bodies  and 
outlined  their  ribs  and  the  stretch  of  mus- 
cles as  they  scrubbed  and  wrung  out  the 
clothes.  When  the  water  became  too  black, 
some  young  boys  threw  it  out  of  doors,  and 
the  women  waited  for  the  tubs  to  be  filled 
again,  their  red  parboiled  hands  resting  on 
their  hips,  in  the  way  of  washerwomen  the 
world  over. 

We  crossed  the  mud  before  the  wash- 
house,  on  planks,  and  went  into  a  house 
across  the  courtyard. 

"This  is  the  tailoring  establishment," 

Mme.  C continued.  "The  tailors 

among  them  mend  and  cut  over  old  clothes 
which  we  collect  for  them,  so  that  every  Jew 
may  start  on  the  next  stage  of  his  journey 
in  perfectly  clean  and  whole  clothes.  My 
husband  and  son  complain  that  they  will 
have  to  stay  in  bed,  soon,  I  have  taken  so 
many  of  their  suits  of  clothes.  —  And  here 
are  the  shoemakers." 

We  looked  into  the  adjoining  room, 
where  the  cobblers  sat  cross-legged,  sewing 
and  patching  and  pegging  shoes. 

[48] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

"It's  very  hard  to  find  the  leather.  But 
it  is  so  important.  If  you  could  see  how 
they  come  here  —  their  feet  bleeding  and 
swollen  an,d  their  shoes  in  tatters.  And 
many  of  them  were  rich  bankers  and  pro- 
fessors in  Galicia  and  Poland,  used  to  their 
own  automobiles'like  the  rest  of  us.  I  think 
I  would  steal  leather  for  them." 

The  workers  were  different  from  the 
waiting  Jews  in  the  courtyard.  Perhaps  it 
was  work  that  gave  them  importance  in 
their  own  eyes,  and  took  away  that  dread- 
ful degrading  subserviency  —  degrading  to 
us  as  much  as  to  themselves.  The  whirr- 
ing noise  of  the  sewing-machines,  the  click 
of  shears,  the  bent  backs  of  the  workers, 
and  the  big  capable  hands,  formed  by  the 
accustomed  work!  The  trade  of  every  man 
could  have  been  known  by  his  hands  !  My 
heart  was  warm  toward  them. 

"It's  splendid,  I  think,"  I  said  to  Mme. 


As  though  she  guessed  my  thoughts,  she 
replied,  "They  are  grateful  for  being  al- 
lowed to  work." 

"For  being  allowed  to  work."  Those 
words  damn  much  in  the  world.  What 
hindrances  we  erect  in  the  way  of  life! 

And  I  looked  out  into  the  courtyard 

[49] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

again,  at  the  apathetic  faces  of  the  waiting 
Jews.  Waiting  for  what?  The  white,  dead 
faces,  with  the  curved  noses  and  hard, 
bright  eyes,  all  turned  toward  us.  Were 
they  submissive  or  expectant,  or  simply 
hating  us  ?  They  say  the  Galician  Jews  turn 
traitors  and  act  as  spies  for  the  Austrians. 
But  surely  not  these.  What  could  these 
broken  creatures  do?  How  near  death  they 
seemed! 

The  courtyard  burned  like  a  furnace. 
The  shade  was  shrinking  from  moment  to 
moment.  The  heat  rose  in  blinding  waves. 
I  was  sickened.  The  courtyard  smelled  of 
dirt  and  waste  and  sickness.  It  was  unreal 
—  the  whole  thing  unreal :  those  working  at 
usual,  necessary  tasks  as  well  as  those  fur- 
tive, watchful  ones  in  the  burning  sun- 
light. Death  was  in  them  all. 

I  went  out  into  the  courtyard,  walking 
slowly  in  the  scorching  heat.  There  was  no 
shade  or  coolness  anywhere.  My  attention 
was  drawn  to  a  pregnant  woman  who  had 
evidently  been  sitting  in  a  thin  strip  of 
shade  by  the  fence;  but  now  the  sun  was 
beating  down  on  her  bare  head.  She  sat 
with  her  arms  hanging  along  her  sides,  the 
palms  of  her  hands  turned  upwards.  A 
baby  hardly  a  year  old  twisted  fretfully  on 

[  So] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

her  lap,  fumbling  at  her  breast  with  a  little 
red  hand.  But  she  looked  steadily  over  the 
baby's  round  head,  a  curiously  intent  ex- 
pression in  her  dark  eyes,  as  though  she 
were  looking  at  something  so  far  away  that 
she  must  concentrate  all  herself  on  it  so  as 
not  to  lose  it  from  view. 

Near  her  a  man  leaned  against  the  fence. 
He  was  red-headed,  and  his  unkempt  hair 
and  ragged  beard  flamed  in  the  sun.  A  rope 
tied  round  his  waist  kept  up  his  loose  trou- 
sers, and  his  shirt  was  open,  disclosing  a 
hairy  chest.  Where  his  skin  showed,  it  was 
unexpectedly  white.  He  kept  plucking  at 
his  chest,  smiling  idiotically 

"Is  he  insane?"  I  asked  Mme.  C . 

"Yes.  He's  that  woman's  husband.  He 
went  out  of  his  head  on  the  road.  They  say 
he  was  raging  that  his  wife  was  obliged  to 
walk  in  her  condition.  Well,  he's  happier 
than  she  is,  now."  i 

Under  a  canopy  made  from  an  old  blue 
skirt  lay  a  sick  boy.  His  face  was  like 
a  death-mask  already,  the  yellow  skin 
stretched  tightly  over  the  bones  of  his  face, 
and  his  mouth  unnaturally  wide,  with 
parched,  swollen  lips.  From  his  hollow 
eye-sockets  his  eyes  looked  out  unwinking, 
as  though  his  lids  had  been  cut  off.  He 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

held  himself  halfway  between  a  reclining 
and  an  upright  position.  No  normal  person 
could  hold  himself  that  way  for  long,  but 
the  sick  boy  kept  himself  motionless  with 
maniacal  strength.  The  flies  hung  over 
him  like  a  cloud  of  black  cinders.  One  of 
his  friends  attempted  to  keep  them  away 
with  a  leafy  branch  which  he  had  found, 
Heaven  knows  where!  I  could  see  no  other 
sign  of  green  in  the  place.  As  we  passed,  I 
noticed  the  branch  sweep  back  and  forth 
over  the  sick  boy's  face,  touching  the  skin. 
And  still  the  fixed  stare  continued,  unin- 
terrupted —  that  blind  gaze  straight  out 
into  emptiness. 

At  the  farther  end,  an  opening  between 
two  of  the  tenements  led  into  a  garden. 
This  space,  too,  was  crowded  with  waiting 
Jews. 

"But  where  do  they  sleep ?"  I  asked. 
"Is  there  room  for  all  those  people  in  the 
houses?" 

"No,"  Mme.  C replied;  "not  when 

so  many  come  through  as  came  this  last 
time.  But  fortunately,  these  summer  nights 
are  fine;  earlier,  we  had  much  rain,  and  you 
can  picture  the  suffering.  Then  there  was 
no  shelter  for  them  at  all.  They  were  sim- 
ply herded  into  a  pen,  and  many  died  from 

1 52] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

the   exposure.    Now,   however,   we   have 
made  conditions  better  for  them." 

There  was  more  reality  here  in  the  gar- 
den, where  there  was  a  suggestion  of  grow- 
ing grass  and  a  thin  leaf  shade.  The  Jews 
lay  on  the  ground  as  though  trying  to  get 
some  coolness  out  of  the  earth.  Up  and 
down  the  paths  walked  several  spectacled 
men,  who  were  brought  up  to  me  and  intro- 
duced as  Professor  So-and-So,  and  Doctor 
So-and-So.  They  were  constantly  trying  to 
get  in  touch  with  friends  in  Kiev  or  Moscow 
or  Petrograd,  or  colleagues  in  medicine  or 
other  sciences,  or  relatives  who  could  help 
them.  They  worked  through  the  society. 
By  the  payment  of  certain  amounts  they 
could  bribe  the  overseers  to  let  them  stay 
on  in  the  Kiev  detention  camp,  or  even 
have  the  liberty  of  the  city.  One  man,  a 
rich  banker  from  Lvov,  had  been  officially 
"sick"  for  several  months,  but  as  his 
money  had  almost  given  out  he  was  in 
danger  of  being  sent  on  to  Tomsk  in  the 
near  future.  He  lived  in  the  hospital,  where 
he  had  better  quarters  and  food.  These 
professors  and  doctors,  men  of  wide  learn- 
ing and  reputation,  who  are  recognized  as 
leaders  in  their  professions,  and  are  con- 
structive, valuable  forces  in  society,  were 

[53  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

herded  together  with  the  others,  and  will 
be  allowed  to  disappear  into  Siberia,  where 
their  minds  and  bodies  will  be  wasted,  their 
possible  future  activity  to  count  as  nothing. 

A  man  in  a  soiled  white  coat  came  up, 
looked  us  over  with  little  blinking  pig  eyes, 

and  addressed  a  few  words  to  Mme.  C 

in  Polish. 

"That  is  the  overseer,"  Professor  A 

said  to  me  in  English.  "He  takes  every 
kopeck  away  from  us.  But  he  is  no  worse 
than  the  rest.  All  along  the  way  it  is  the 
same  thing.  One  is  bled  to  death."  He 
shrugged  indifferently.  "We  most  of  us 
could  have  gathered  together  a  little  money. 
But  what  will  you?  It  was  all  so  sudden. 
We  had  no  time.  Here  we  are,  en  tout  cas. 
And  after  all,  in  the  end  — " 

I  might  have  been  talking  with  the  pro- 
fessors on  the  campus  of  their  own  univer- 
sity. They  exerted  themselves  to  be  atten- 
tive and  entertaining,  as  though  they  were 
our  hosts. 

One  doctor  said  to  me  in  French,  "I  have 
seen  your  wonderful  country.  It  is  amaz- 
ing. I  would  like  to  see  it  again.  I  have 
been  asked  to  lecture.  Perhaps,  after  the 
war—" 

He  broke  off  abruptly.  In  a  flash  the  end 

[S4l 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

of  his  life  came  up  to  me.  His  work  and  am- 
bitions, and  then  the  cleavage  in  his  career; 
the  sharp  division  in  his  life;  the  prepa- 
ration of  years,  and  then,  instead  of  ful- 
fillment, an  exile  to  a  country  where  life 
was  a  struggle  for  the  bare  necessities  of 
the  body  —  food  and  shelter.  I  looked  at 
his  hands  —  thin  and  white  and  nervous. 
What  hideous,  despairing  moments  he  must 
know! 

I  asked  him  a  question.  His  eyes  blazed 
suddenly. 

"Do  not  speak  of  these  things !  They  are 
not  to  be  spoken  of,  much  less  to  you."  He 
looked  as  though  he  hated  me.  "I  beg 
your  pardon,  I  am  nervous.  You  must  ex- 
cuse me."  He  went  away  hurriedly. 

"Poor  chap!"  Professor  A said.  "It 

is  hard  for  us  all  in  this  heat.  And,  yes, 
some  of  us  have  more  imagination  than 
others." 

A  man  in  uniform  came  into  the  garden. 
He  walked  to  a  tree  in  the  center,  and  stood 
in  the  shade,  a  long  sheet  of  paper  in  his 
hand.  There  was  a  stir  among  the  Jews. 
Those  lying  down  got  up  and  approached 
him.  The  women,  with  their  children, 
dragged  themselves  nearer.  Every  one 
stopped  talking.  The  apathy  and  indiffer- 

[55] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

ence  gave  place  to  a  strained  attention. 
There  was  a  kind  of  dreadful  anxiety  on 
every  face  —  a  tightening  of  the  muscles 
round  the  eyes  and  mouths,  as  though  the 
same  horrible  fear  fixed  the  same  mark 
there.  I  have  never  seen  a  crowd  where 
personality  was  so  stamped  out  by  a  sin- 
gle overmastering  emotion.  The  gendarme 
began  to  read  in  a  sing-song  voice . 

" What  is  he  saying?"  I  whispered. 

"The  names  of  those  who  are  to  leave 
this  afternoon,"  Mme.  C replied. 

The  garden  was  absolutely  still  except 
for  the  monotonous  voice  and  the  breath- 
ing of  the  crowd.  Oh,  yes,  and  the  flies.  It 
was  not  that  I  forgot  the  flies,  only  their 
buzzing  was  the  ceaseless  accompaniment 
to  everything  that  happened  in  the  camp. 

"How  horrible  this  is!"  Mme.  C 

observed.  "They  all  know  it  must  come, 
but  when  it  does,  it  is  almost  unbearable. 
It  is  truly  a  list  of  death.  Many  of  them 
here  cannot  survive  another  stage  of  the 
journey  in  this  heat.  And  yet  they  must 
be  moved  on  to  make  place  for  those  who 
are  pressing  on  from  behind.  In  this  very 
crowd  were  five  old  men  who  were  killed 
on  the  way  here,  by  the  soldiers,  because 
they  could  n't  keep  up  with  the  procession. 

1 56] 


BLACK  RUSSIA  T 

How  could  these  civilians  be  expected  to 
endure  such  hardships?  They  are  towns- 
people, most  of  them  having  lived  indoors 
all  their  liv£s,  like  you  or  me." 

"Like  you  or  me."  No,  no.  It  was  unbe- 
lievable. I  could  not  put  myself  in  their 
place.  I  could  not  imagine  such  insecurity 
—  that  lives  could  be  broken  in  the  middle 
in  this  way. 

"How  useless  it  all  seems!"  I  said. 

"Useless.  You  think  so?"  Mme.  C 

took  me  up.  "Do  you  realize  that  whole 
Galician  towns  have  been  moved  into  Si- 
beria this  summer?  Part  of  the  way  on 
foot,  part  in  baggage  cars,  where  they 
stifled  to  death  in  the  heat  and  for  lack  of 
water  and  food.  One  carload  was  n't  listed, 
or  was  forgotten  by  some  careless  official, 
and  when  it  was  finally  opened  it  was  a 
carload  of  rotting  flesh.  The  bodies  were 
thrown  into  the  river  by  the  frightened 
official,  but  a  soldier  reported  him  and  he 
was  court-martialed.  One  crowd  of  several 
thousand  was  taken  to  Siberia.  They 
reached  Tomsk.  Then  the  Government 
changed.  What  was  the  need  to  transport 
these  Galician  Jews?  the  new  Minister 
argued:  a  useless  expense  to  the  Govern- 
ment: a  waste  of  money  and  time.  Let 

t  S7l 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

them  go  back  to  their  homes.  So  the  Jews 
were  taken  back  over  the  same  route, 
many  more  dying  on  the  return  journey, 
in  the  jails,  and  camps,  and  baggage  cars, 
or  by  the  roadsides.  They  found  themselves 
once  more  back  in  their  pillaged  towns, 
with  nothing  to  work  with,  and  yet  with 
their  livelihood  to  be  earned  somehow. 
They  began  to  dig  and  plant  and  take  up 
the  routine  of  their  lives  again.  They  be- 
gan to  look  on  themselves  as  human  again. 
The  grind  of  suffering  and  hopelessness  be- 
gan to  let  up  and  they  had  moments  of 
hope.  And  then  the  reactionaries  came  into 
power  with  their  systematic  oppression  of 
the  Jews.  Back  to  Siberia  with  them!  This 
in  midsummer  heat.  I  saw  them  as  they 
passed  through  Kiev  for  the  third  time,  a 
few  weeks  ago.  Never  shall  I  forget  them 
as  I  saw  them  last.  The  mark  of  the  beast 
was  on  them.  You  could  n't  call  them  liv- 
ing or  suffering  or  martyrs  any  more.  They 
were  beyond  the  point  where  they  prayed 
to  die." 

The  gendarme  had  finished  his  list.  The 
tension  relaxed.  Some  of  the  Jews  settled 
back  into  their  former  apathy;  others 
gathered  in  excited  groups,  pulling  their 
beards  and  scratching  their  heads;  still 

[58] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

others  walked  up  and  down  the  paths, 
restless,  like  so  many  caged  animals. 

A  man  and  a  woman  with  two  children 
approached  the  gendarme  deprecatingly. 
The  man  asked  a  question,  indicating  the 
woman  and  children.  The  gendarme  shook 
his  head.  The  man  persisted.  The  gen- 
darme refused  again,  and  started  to  move 
away.  The  man  detained  him  with  a  hand 
on  his  arm.  Another  man  approached.  He 
spread  out  both  hands,  his  shoulders  up  to 
his  ears.  All  three  men  spoke  Polish  in 
loud,  excited  voices. 

"What  are  they  saying?"  I  asked. 

"The  gendarme  has  just  read  the  names 
of  the  woman  and  children  who  are  to 
leave  this  afternoon.  The  father's  name  is 
not  with  theirs.  Naturally,  he  wants  to 
be  with  his  wife  and  children  to  protect  and 
care  for  them  as  best  he  can.  If  they  are 
separated  now,  they  can  never  find  each 
other  again  in  Siberia  —  if  they  live  till 
they  get  there.  The  third  man  is  alone. 
He  is  willing  to  give  up  his  place  to  the 
father.  But  the  gendarme  refuses.  'His 
name  is  written.  Yours  is  not.  It  is  the 
order,'  he  says." 

The  gendarme  now  left  the  garden.  The 
woman  was  sobbing  in  her  husband's  arms. 

lS9l 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

He  was  patting  her  hair.  The  children 
hung  at  their  mother's  skirt,  crying  and 
sucking  their  fingers. 

August  12,  1915. 
Dearest  Mother  and  Dad:  — 

They  say  there  was  no  ammunition  at 
the  front.  No  shells  for  the  soldiers.  They 
had  nothing  to  do  but  retreat.  And  now? 
They  are  still  retreating,  fighting  with 
empty  guns  and  clubs  and  even  their 
naked  hands.  And  still,  trainloads  of  sol- 
diers go  out  of  Kiev  every  day  without  a 
gun  in  their  hands.  What  a  butchery!  Can 
you  imagine  how  horrible  it  is  to  see  them 
march  through  the  streets,  swinging  their 
arms  and  singing  their  stirring  songs,  — • 
tall,  able-bodied  men,  —  while  the  beggars, 
cripples  from  the  Russo-Japanese  War, 
stand  whining  at  the  street  corners. 

There  seems  to  be  no  doubt  about  the 
enemy  within  the  gates.  How  can  the 
soldiers  give  their  lives  so  patiently  and 
bravely  for  a  Government  whose  villainy 
and  corruption  take  no  account  of  the  sig- 
nificance of  their  sacrifices.  The  German 
influence  is  still  strong.  They  say  German 
money  bribes  the  Ministers  at  home  and 
the  generals  at  the  front. 
[60] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

There  is  great  distrust  of  the  Czarina 
and  the  Monk  Rasputin.  The  latter  was  a 
serf  in  Siberia,  and  now  has  a  malignant, 
hypnotic  influence  in  the  Russian  Court. 
If  he  is  refused  anything,  he  falls  on  the 
floor  in  a  fit  and  froths  at  the  mouth  until 
he  gets  what  he  wants.  The  Court  ladies 
have  to  lick  his  dirty  fingers  clean,  for  he 
refuses  to  use  a  finger-bowl  at  table.  Take 
this  for  what  it's  worth.  At  any  rate,  there 
is  much  talk  now  of  the  Germans  working 
through  this  disreputable  creature. 

I  asked  a  Russian  if  there  could  be  a  revo- 
lution. 

There  seems  to  be  no  hope.  Russia, 
apparently,  lacks  the  coordination  and 
singleness  of  purpose  necessary  for  one. 
And  so  many  unseen  influences  are  at 
work.  There  is  no  agreement  among  the 
people  as  to  what  they  want.  Each  faction 
is  secretly  encouraged  to  war  against  the 
other  in  order  to  weaken  each  other  and 
blur  the  reason  and  end  in  the  people's 
minds.  Besides,  of  course,  nothing  can  be 
done  as  long  as  the  army  can  be  used 
to  crush  any  demonstration  against  the 
Government.  But  if  I  were  a  Russian,  all 
my  hate  would  be  directed  against  the 
traitors  of  my  country,  rather  than  at  the 

[  61  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

Germans,  who,  after  all,  are  political  ene- 
mies. I  would  carry  a  gun  against  those 
who  sell  my  country  and  make  capital  out 
of  her  suffering. 

In  every  newspaper  there  are  accounts 
of  enormous  graft  by  Ministers  and  com- 
panies under  contract  to  the  Government 
for  military  supplies.  One  case  was  trans- 
lated to  me  the  other  day.  Some  men  high 
up  in  the  Government  took  over  a  contract 
for  a  certain  number  of  cavalry  saddles  and 
bridles.  They  sold  it  to  the  Jews,  making 
a  tremendous  rake-off.  The  Jews,  to  get 
any  profit,  were  obliged  to  furnish  poor 
material.  At  the  trial,  where  some  officers 
were  testing  them,  the  bridles  broke  in 
their  hands  like  paper  and  the  saddles  split 
into  ribbons. 

Then  there  was  a  sugar  factory  in  Kiev, 
whose  owner  wrote  to  the  Minister  of  the 
Interior,  I  think  it  was,  and  offered  his 
factory,  only  asking  an  estimate  of  the 
approximate  amount  of  sugar  the  Govern- 
ment would  need  turned  out  each  day. 
No  answer  was  made.  The  owner  wrote 
again.  Still  no  answer.  He  went  to  Petro- 
grad  himself  to  find  out  why  the  Depart- 
ment paid  no  attention  to  his  letters.  The 
Minister  informed  him  his  letters  had 
[  62] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

lacked  the  required  war-tax  stamps  and 
had  been  turned  over  to  the  proper  au- 
thorities, who  would  speedily  proceed  to 
fine  him  for  his  evasion  of  the  law. 

I  went  up  to  a  military  hospital  to-day. 
I  wonder  how  I  can  write  you  about 
it.  The  insignificance  of  personalities  — 
whether  any  one  lives  or  dies  seems  to  have 
no  importance.  Just  life  seems  to  matter 
any  more,  and  the  forward  movement  of 
humanity  —  at  least,  you  must  believe  the 
movement  is  forward  in  spite  of  the  horror 
of  mangled  bodies  and  destroyed  minds; 
otherwise,  you  would  go  mad,  though  you 
are  outside  of  it  all.  How  the  proportions 
of  things  are  twisted  after  going  through  a 
hospital.  Things  that  counted  before  don't 
seem  to  count  any  more.  You  take  refuge 
in  generalities  to  get  out  of  your  mind  a 
look  you  have  seen  in  a  soldier's  eyes. 

It  was  an  improvised  hospital,  —  some 
building  or  other  turned  into  a  place  to 
receive  the  hundreds  of  wounded  that  are 
pouring  into  Kiev  every  day.  It  was  a  big 
room,  with  rows  and  rows  of  beds,  and  in 
every  bed  a  man.  One  man  was  wounded 
in  the  back,  and  his  breath  whistled 
through  the  open  hole  like  steam  through 
an  escape  valve.  His  face  was  wound  in 

[63  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

white  bandages.  Others  were  there,  dying 
from  terrible  stomach  wounds.  One  man's 
head  moved  from  side  to  side  incessantly, 
as  though  he  could  never  again  find  com- 
fort on  earth.  Some  moan.  Others  lay 
absolutely  motionless,  their  faces  terrible 
dead-white  masks.  Their  bodies  looked  so 
long  and  thin  under  the  sheets,  with  their 
toes  turned  up.  It  was  indescribably  terri- 
fying to  think  that  human  beings  could  go 
through  so  much  and  continue  to  live.  I 
was  more  frightened  than  ever  before  in  my 
life.  The  smell  of  blood  —  the  closeness  of 
the  hot  sick-room  —  flies  buzzing  about.  I 
saw  brown  varnish-like  stains  on  some  of 
the  white  bandages.  The  indifferent,  busi- 
ness-like attitude  of  the  nurses  infuriated 
me.  But,  of  course,  they  can't  be  any  other 
way  and  deal  with  it  all. 

I  can't  write  any  more.  But  is  there  any 
excuse  for  this? 

RUTH. 

August  10,  1915. 

Lately,  our  conversation  at  table  has 
been  suppressed  by  the  appearance  of  a 
young  woman  whom  the  rest  suspect  of 
being  a  spy.  She  is  dark,  and  never  utters  a 
word.  All  through  dinner  she  keeps  her 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

eyes  on  her  plate.  I  said  something  in 
French  to  her  the  other  day,  but,  appar- 
ently, she  did  not  understand.  Across  the 
table,  the  Morowski  boys  laughed  at  me. 
I  suspect  that  they,  too,  had  tried  to  speak 
to  her,  for  she  is  pretty,  and  had  been 
snubbed  like  me.  I  don't  know  how  the 
idea  of  her  being  a  spy  got  round.  She  may 
have  been  sent  here  to  keep  her  eyes  on  the 
Polish  refugees  in  the  pension.  Her  room 
is  in  our  corridor,  and  this  morning  Marie 
saw,  through  the  open  door,  Panna  Lolla 
and  Janchu  talking  to  her.  It  appears 
that  Janchu  had  been  inveigled  in  by  bon- 
bons, and  Panna  Lolla  had  gone  in  after 
him.  Panna  Lolla  said  the  young  woman 
was  so  lonely.  She  is  a  Pole  and  wants  to 
leave  Russia.  She  hates  it  here.  But  she 
has  no  passport.  She  showed  Panna  Lolla 
an  old  one  that  she  wants  to  fix  up  for  the 
police  authorities.  But  she  can't  speak 
Russian,  and  is  very  frightened.  She  asked 
Panna  Lolla  if  she  knew  any  one  who  could 
write  Russian.  Marie  forbade  Panna  Lolla 
to  go  near  the  woman  again.  It  is  just  as 
well,  for  Panna  Lolla  likes  excitement,  and 
is  capable  of  saying  anything  to  keep  it 
going,  / 


Ill 

August. 
Dartingest  Mother  and  Dad:  — 

We  were  arrested  four  days  ago  —  and 
you  will  wonder  why  I  keep  on  writing.  It 
relieves  my  nerves.  Ever  since  the  revision 
Marie  and  I  have  gone  over  and  over  the 
same  reasoning,  trying  to  get  at  why  we 
were  arrested.  To  write  it  all  out  may  help 
the  restlessness  and  anxiety  and  —  yes  — 
the  panicky  fear  that  rises  in  my  throat 
like  nausea.  Life  is  so  terribly  insecure.  I 
feel  as  though  I  had  been  stripped  naked 
and  turned  out  into  the  streets,  with  no 
person  or  place  to  go  to. 

It  was  four  o'clock,  and  we  had  just  fin- 
ished dinner.  In  an  hour  and  a  half  we 
were  leaving  for  Odessa.  All  our  trunks 
and  bags  were  packed,  and  our  traveling 
suits  brushed  and  pressed.  Panna  Lolla 
was  crying  at  having  to  part  from  Janchu, 
and  mending  some  stockings  for  him.  He 
was  asleep.  Marie  and  I  were  sitting  in  our 
little  salon,  rejoicing  that  we  should  be  in 
Bucharest  in  a  few  days  where  there  was 
no  war  and  we  could  speak  French  again. 
166] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

War  —  blood- tracks  on  the  snow,  and 
cholera  and  typhus  camps  under  a  burning 
sun.  To  shut  it  out  for  one  instant  and 
pretend  that  the  world  was  the  way  it  used 
to  be.  What  a  heaven  Bucharest  seemed! 

And  suddenly  the  door  of  our  apartment 
opened.  Six  men  came  into  the  room,  two 
in  uniform,  the  other  four  in  plain  clothes. 
It  never  occurred  to  me  that  they  had 
anything  to  do  with  me.  I  thought  they 
had  mistaken  the  door.  I  looked  at  Marie 
questioningly.  There  was  something  pe- 
culiar about  her  face. 

The  four  plain-clothes  men  stood  awk- 
wardly about  the  door  which  they  had 
closed  softly  behind  them.  The  two  men 
with  white  cord  loops  across  the  breast  of 
their  uniforms  went  over  to  the  table  on 
the  right  and  put  down  their  black  leather 
portfolios.  They  seemed  to  make  them- 
selves at  home,  and  it  angered  me. 

"What  are  these  people  doing  here?"  I 
asked  Marie  sharply. 

She  addressed  the  officer  in  Polish,  and 
he  answered  curtly. 

"It's  a  revision"  she  replied. 

"A  what?"  4 

"A  revision,"  she  repeated. 

I  remember  that  I  consciously  kept  my 

[  67] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

body  motionless,  and  said  to  myself, 
"There  is  nothing  surprising  in  this.  There 
is  nothing  surprising  in  this."  Everything 
had  gone  dark  before  my  eyes.  My  heart 
seemed  to  stop  beating. 

Marie  laughed  and  the  sound  of  her 
cracking,  high-pitched  laugh  came  to  me 
from  far  off. 

The  officer  said  something  to  her,  and 
she  stopped  abruptly  as  though  some  one 
had  clapped  a  hand  over  her  mouth. 

"What  did  he  say?"  I  managed  to  artic- 
ulate. My  own  language  seemed  to  have 
deserted  me. 

"He  says  it  is  a  matter  for  tears,  not 
laughter." 

Her  voice  was  sharp  and  anxious.  I  was 
relieved  at  the  spite  and  vanity  in  his 
words.  They  made  the  situation  more  nor- 
mal. I  felt  myself  breathing  again,  and  my 
stomach  began  to  tremble  uncontrollably. 

I  kept  my  eyes  where  they  were,  fighting 
for  my  self-control.  So  many  terrifying 
thoughts  were  trying  to  penetrate  my  con- 
sciousness. I  tried  to  shut  out  everything 
but  my  realization  of  what  I  was  looking 
at.  I  kept  my  eyes  glued  on  the  officer's 
boots;  shiny  black  boots  they  were,  that 
fitted  him  without  a  crease,  with  spurs 
[68] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

fastened  to  the  heels.  I  shall  never  forget 
the  stiff,  red  striped  trouser-legs  and  those 
shiny  black  boots  that  did  n't  seem  to  be- 
long on  the  body  of  a  living  man,  but  on 
the  wooden  form  of  some  dummy. 

Janchu  began  to  cry  from  the  bedroom, 
and  Marie  got  up  to  go  to  him.  Quickly  a 
plain-clothes  man  with  horn-rimmed  spec- 
tacles slipped  in  between  her  and  the  door. 
The  officer,  who  had  now  seated  himself 
behind  the  table,  raised  his  hand. 

"Let  no  one  leave  the  room,"  he  said  in 
German. 

"But  my  baby  is  crying,"  Marie  began. 

"Let  him  cry!"  And  he  busied  himself 
pulling  papers  out  of  his  portfolio. 

Soon  Janchu,  seeing  that  no  one  paid  any 
attention  to  him,  toddled  in  and  climbed 
into  Marie's  lap.  He  sat  there  sucking  his 
fingers  and  looking  out  at  the  roomful  of 
strange  men. 

An  army  officer  entered  and  spoke  to  the 
head  of  the  secret  service.  He  wore  a  daz- 
zling, gold-braided  uniform,  and  preened 
himself  before  us,  looking  at  us  curiously 
over  his  shoulder.  When  he  had  gone,  the 
head  told  us  that  we  were  to  have  a  per- 
sonal examination  in  the  salon  of  the 
pension.  -. 

[69] 


BLACK  RUSSIA" 

A  secret-service  man  escorted  each  of  us, 
and  we  walked  down  the  corridor,  past  the 
squad  of  soldiers  with  their  bayonets,  and 
into  the  salon,  where  we  were  delivered 
into  the  hands  of  two  women  spies.  They 
undressed  us,  and  we  waited  while  our 
clothes  were  passed  out  to  the  secret- 
service  men  outside.  Panna  Lolla  tried  to 
twist  herself  up  in  the  window  curtains. 
Marie  and  I  grew  hysterical  at  her  mod- 
esty, looking  at  her  big,  knobby  feet  and 
her  fiery  face,  with  her  top-knot  of  dishev- 
eled red  hair.  We  were  given  our  clothes 
again,  and  went  back  to  our  apartment. 

The  rooms  were  in  confusion.  All  our 
trunks  and  bags  were  emptied,  one  end  of 
the  carpet  rolled  back,  the  mattresses  torn 
from  the  beds.  The  secret-service  men  were 
down  on  their  knees  before  piles  of  clothes, 
going  over  the  seams,  emptying  the  pock- 
ets, unfolding  handkerchiefs,  tapping  the 
heels  of  shoes;  every  scrap  of  paper  was 
passed  over  to  the  chief,  who  tucked  it  into 
his  portfolio.  I  watched  him,  hating  his 
square,  stolid  body  that  filled  out  his  uni- 
form smoothly.  His  eyes  were  long  and 
watchful  like  a  cat's,  and  his  fair  mustache 
was  turned  up  at  the  ends,  German  fash- 
ion; in  fact,  there  was  something  very 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

German  about  his  thick  thighs  and  shaved 
head  and  official  importance.  As  I  have 
learned  since,  he  is  a  German  and  the  most 
hated  man  in  Kiev  for  his  pitiless  persecu- 
tion of  all  political  offenders.  They  say  he 
has  sent  more  people  to  Siberia  than  any 
six  of  his  predecessors.  They  also  say  every 
hand  is  against  him,  even  to  the  spies'  in 
his  own  force. 

I  trembled  to  spring  at  him  and  claw 
him  and  ruffle  his  composure  some  way. 
Instead,  I  sat  quietly,  my  hands  folded,  and 
watched  the  spies  ransacking  our  clothes. 
I  began  to  feel  a  sharp  anxiety  as  to  what 
they  would  find.  It  was  all  so  mysterious. 
What  were  they  looking  for?  At  one  mo- 
ment it  was  ridiculous,  and  I  felt  like  laugh- 
ing at  the  whole  affair;  and  then  the  next, 
the  silence  in  which  the  search  was  con- 
ducted, the  apparent  dead-seriousness  of 
the  spies'  faces,  the  deliberation  with  which 
the  chief  turned  the  bits  of  paper  over  in 
his  hands  and  scrutinized  them  and  put 
them  carefully  away,  struck  me  with  a  cold, 
sharp  apprehension.  I  had  the  sensation  of 
being  on  the  very  edge  of  a  precipice.  I 
felt  as  though  the  world  were  upside  down 
and  the  most  innocent  thing  could  be 
turned  against  us.  Every  card  and  photo- 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

graph  I  tried  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  before  it 
went  into  the  black  portfolio.  And  sud- 
denly I  saw  the  letter  about  the  Jewish 
detention  camp,  which  I  had  forgotten  all 
about.  I  saw  the  close  lines  of  my  writ- 
ing, and  it  seemed  as  though  the  edge  of 
the  precipice  crumbled  and  I  went  shoot- 
ing down.  A  cold  sweat  broke  out  over 
me. 

"But  why  are  we  arrested?"  I  heard 
Marie  ask  in  German. 

"Espionage,"  the  chief  answered  shortly. 

"But  that  is  ridiculous.  We're  Ameri- 
can citizens." 

No  reply. 

"Can  we  leave  for  Odessa  to-night? " 

No  reply. 

Marie  stopped  her  questions. 

"What  money  have  you?  Come  here 
while  I  count  it,"  one  of  the  spies  said  to 
me.  He  slipped  me  one  hundred  roubles  on 
the  sly,  before  turning  the  rest  over  to  the 
chief.  I  held  it  openly  in  my  hand,  too 
dazed  to  know  what  to  do  with  it,  till  he 
whispered  to  me  to  hide  it.  "You  may 
want  it,  later,"  he  said. 

"Frau  Pierce  will  go  with  us,"  the  chief 
said,  closing  his  portfolio;  and  I  under- 
stood that  the  revision  was  finished.  "Frau 

[72] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

G can  stay  here  under  room-arrest, 

with  her  little  boy." 

He  spoke  to  no  one  in  particular,  but 
addressed  the  room  at  large,  his  face  im- 
passive, and  his  voice  without  an  intona- 
tion. The  spies  stood  in  the  midst  of  the 
tumbled  clothes,  watching  us  silently,  om- 
inously. Janchu  now  crept  up  into  Marie's 
lap  again.  As  a  matter  of  course,  I  went 
into  the  other  room  and  changed  into  my 
traveling  suit. 

"May  I  take  my  toilet  things?"  I  asked 
the  chief. 

"Ja." 

"You'd  better  make  a  bundle  of  bed- 
clothes," the  spy  who  had  given  me  the 
money  whispered  to  me. 

I  rolled  up  two  blankets  and  a  pillow 
with  his  help. 

"I'm  ready,"  I  said.  "May  I  send  a  few 
telegrams?" 

"Certainly,  certainly."  The  chief's  man- 
ner suddenly  became  extremely  courteous. 

I  wrote  one  to  our  Ambassador  in  Petro- 
grad,  one  to  Mr.  Vopicka  in  Bucharest,  one 
to  the  State  Department  in  Washington, 
and  one  to  Peter.  I  wrote  Peter  that  I  was 
delayed  a  few  days.  I  was  afraid  that  he 
might  come  on  and  be  arrested,  too.  My 

[  73  1 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

hand  did  not  tremble,  though  it  struck  me 
as  very  queer  to  see  the  words  traced  out 
on  the  paper  —  almost  magical.  My  im- 
agination was  racing,  and  I  could  see  my- 
self already  being  driven  into  one  of  those 
baggage  cars  bound  for  Tomsk. 

"Keep  your  mind  away  from  what  is 
going  to  happen,"  I  said  to  myself.  "You 
will  have  time  enough  to  think  in  prison. 
Things  are  as  they  are.  You  are  going 
to  walk  out  of  this  room,  just  the  way 
you've  done  a  hundred  times.  Are  you 
different  now  from  what  you've  always 
been?  Keep  your  mind  on  things  you  know 
are  real." 

I  tried  to  move  accurately,  as  though  a 
false  move  would  disturb  the  balance  of 
things  so  that  I  would  walk  out  of  the  room 
on  my  hands  like  an  acrobat. 

Suddenly,  the  chief,  who  had  been  talk- 
ing in  a  corner  with  the  other  man  in  uni- 
form, wheeled  about. 

"Frau  Pierce  may  stay  here  under  room- 
arrest.  Good-day." 

He  clicked  his  heels  together  and  bowed 
slightly.  His  spies  clustered  about  him, 
and  they  left  the  room. 

All  at  once  my  bones  seemed  to  crumble 
and  my  flesh  dissolve.  I  fell  into  a  chair. 

[  74l 


BLACK  RUSSIA' 

Marie  and  I  looked  at  each  other.  We  be- 
gan to  laugh.  "  We  must  n't  get  hysterical," 
we  said,  and  kept  on  laughing. 

The  room  was  so  dark  that  we  looked 
like  two  shadows.  Panna  Lolla  had  come 
after  Janchu  and  taken  him  into  Count 

S 's  room.  We  imagined  the  excited 

curiosity  of  the  rest  of  the  pension. 

"I'll  wager  that  woman  was  a  spy,  after 
all." 

"But  why  —  why  should  we  have  a  re- 
vision?" 

"Anyway,  they  couldn't  have  found 
much.  We'll  be  set  free  in  a  few  days," 
Marie  said. 

"They  found  my  letter  about  the  Jews," 
I  replied. 

"What  letter?  Oh,  my  dear,  what  did 
you  say?" 

"  I  forget.  But  everything  I  saw  or  heard, 
I  think." 

We  began  to  laugh  again. 

"Will  they  send  our  telegrams?"  — 
"Will  Peter  come  on?"— "What  shall 
we  do  for  money?" 

The  room  was  pitch-dark  except  for  the 
electric  light  from  the  street.  We  heard 
the  creak  and  rattle  of  the  empty  commis- 
sariat wagons  returning  from  the  barracks. 

[75] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

We  fell  silent,  feeling  suddenly  very  tired 
and  lethargic. 

" Where  is  Janchu?  It's  time  for  his 
supper,"  Marie  said,  without  moving. 

I  started  out  of  the  room  to  call  him,  and 
fell  across  a  dark  figure  sitting  in  front  of 
the  door.  He  grunted  and  pushed  me  back 
into  the  room. 

"I  want  Janchu,"  I  said  in  perfectly 
good  English,  while  he  closed  the  door  in 
my  face. 

"There's  a  spy  outside  our  door,"  I 
whispered  to  Marie. 

Panna  Lolla  came  in  with  Janchu  and 
turned  on  the  light. 

"There's  a  man  outside  our  door,  and 
two  secret-service  men  at  the  pension  door 
and  two  soldiers  downstairs,"  she  whis- 
pered excitedly  in  one  breath.  "No  one 
can  leave  the  pension,  and  they  take  the 
name  and  address  of  every  one  who  comes 
here.  And  that  woman  was  a  spy.  Antosha 
saw  the  chief  go  into  her  room  and  heard 
them  talking  together.  And  she  left  when 
they  did." 

I  lay  all  night,  half  asleep,  half  awake, 
hearing  the  street  noises  clearly  through 
the  open  windows.  I  cried  a  little  from 
exhaustion  and  nerves,  and  then  controlled 

[76] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

myself,  for  my  head  began  to  ache,  and 
who  knew  what  would  happen  the  next 
day?  I  had  to  keep  strength  to  meet  some- 
thing that  was  coming.  I  had  no  idea  what 
it  was,  but  the  uncertainty  of  the  future 
only  made  it  more  ominous  and  threaten- 
ing. That  letter  —  In  the  darkness  I  saw 
the  chief's  watchful,  narrow  eyes,  and  the 
horn-rimmed  spectacles  of  the  friendly 
spy,  and  the  stuffed  portfolio. 

Later. 

Nothing  has  happened  yet.  We  have  our 
meals  brought  to  us  by  Antosha,  who  tries 
to  comfort  us  with  extra  large  pickled  cu- 
cumbers and  portions  of  sour  cream.  We 
are  allowed  to  send  Panna  Lolla  down- 
town for  cigarettes  and  books  from  the  cir- 
culating library.  Thank  Heaven  for  books ! 
With  our  nerves  stretched  to  the  snapr 
ping-point  and  a  pinwheel  of  thoughts  ever- 
lastingly spinning  round  in  our  heads,  I 
think  we  should  go  mad  except  for  books. 
It  is  very  hot,  but  my  body  is  always  cool 
and  damp,  because  I  can't  eat  much,  I 
suppose,  and  lie  on  a  chaise  longue  motion- 
less all  day  long.  I  can  feel  myself  growing 
weak,  and  there  is  nothing  to  do  but  sit 
and  wait. 

[77] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

Marie  and  I  go  over  and  over  the  whole 
thing,  and  finish  at  the  point  where  we  be- 
gan. "But  why?"  We  think  it  may  be 
because  Marie  came  to  Bulgaria  to  visit 
me  and  brought  me  back  here,  and  now 
we  want  to  leave  Russia  together.  The 
papers  say  that  Bulgaria  already  has  Ger- 
man officers  over  her  troops.  But  I  can't 
believe  it.  She  is  too  independent.  They 
say  that  she  will  certainly  go  with  the 
Central  Powers.  That,  too,  is  inconceiv- 
able. Perhaps,  however,  if  it  is  true,  and 
already  known  by  the  Russian  authorities, 
the  secret  service  is  suspicious  of  our  going 
back  there,  and  of  Marie's  intention  of 
sailing  home  from  Dedeagatch,  via  Greece. 
What  else  could  it  be?  How  this  uncer- 
tainty maddens  us!  Yet  we  are  thankful 
for  every  day  that  passes  and  leaves  us  to- 
gether. What  will  happen  when  they  trans- 
late my  letter?  Boj'e  moy!  I  hear  a  step 
outside  the  door,  and  my  heart  simply 
ceases  to  beat. 

Pan  Tchedesky  to-day  tiptoed  into  our 
room  when  the  spy  was  having  his  lunch. 
He  whispered  to  us  that  he  had  seen  the 
English  Consul,  Mr.  Douglas,  and  told  him 
about  our  case.  He  begged  us  not  to  be 
discouraged,  and  to  eat.  He  said  that  he 

[73] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

almost  wept  when  he  saw  our  plates  come 
back  to  the  kitchen,  untouched.  How 
flabby  and  livid  he  looked,  his  vague, 
blurred  eyes  watery  with  tears!  Yet  we 
could  have  embraced  him.  He  is  the  only 
person  who  has  spoken  to  us. 

The  sun  is  golden  on  the  old  convent 
wall  across  the  street.  The  convent  is 
empty  during  the  summer.  Only  the  rich- 
est Court  ladies  send  their  daughters  there 
to  be  educated,  and  the  Dowager  Empress 
visits  them  when  she  passes  through  Kiev. 
The  trees  in  the  garden  are  gold  and  green 
in  the  late  afternoon  sun.  A  little  bell 
tinkles  musically. 

Below  in  the  street  some  passing  soldiers 
are  singing.  How  fresh  and  strong  and 
beautiful  their  untrained  voices  are.  I 
wonder  if  they  are  off  to  the  front,  for 
each  one  carries  a  pack  and  a  little  tea- 
kettle swung  on  his  back  and  a  wooden 
spoon  stuck  along  the  side  of  his  leg  in  his 
boot.  Where  will  they  be  sent?  Up  north, 
to  try  and  stem  the  German  advance  ?  To 
Riga?  Where?  The  Germans  are  still  ad- 
vancing. Something  is  wrong  somewhere. 
And  still  soldiers  go  to  the  front,  singing. 
They  are  thrown  into  the  breach.  I  can't 
help  but  think  of  the  fields  of  Russian  dead, 

[791 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

unburied.  Who  has  a  chance  to  bury  the 
dead  on  a  retreat?  There  is  nothing  "de- 
cent" in  it.  Yet  they  say  the  retreat  is 
"orderly."  I  wonder  what  that  means? 

At  night  when  I  try  to  sleep,  I  see  the 
map  of  Russia  as  if  it  was  printed  on  my 
eyeballs.  It  is  so  big  and  black  with  a  thin 
red  line  of  fire  eating  into  it.  America 
seems  millions  of  miles  away.  I  wish  I 
could  touch  you  just  for  a  minute.  If  I 
could  only  feel  your  arms  about  me  for 
one  moment.  The  only  way  is  not  to  think 
beyond  this  room  and  this  minute. 

RUTH. 

August. 
Dearests:  — 

Peter  is  here.  Last  night,  about  nine 
o'clock  the  door  opened  and  he  rushed  into 
the  room.  I  got  to  my  feet  on  impulse, 
and  then  tried  to  brace  myself  and  control 
my  disordered  reason,  for,  of  course,  I  be- 
lieved myself  delirious.  He  stopped  by  the 
door  long  enough  to  throw  down  his  suit- 
case, and  in  that  instant  I  struggled  fiercely 
to  disbelieve  my  eyes.  I  was  fighting  my- 
self. My  legs  trembled.  But  when  I  fell, 
his  arms  were  around  me,  supporting  me. 

"Is  it  you?   Is  it  you?"    I  don't  know 
[  80] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

whether  I  said  the  words  out  loud  or  not, 
but  I  remember  feeling  the  muscle  in 
Peter's  shoulder  and  wondering  if  I  could 
have  gone  out  of  my  head  as  much  as  that. 

"What  on  earth  has  happened  to  you 
two?"  he  said  at  last. 

"Let  me  sit  down,"  I  said,  feeling  sud- 
denly very  sick  and  faint,  and  a  black  spot 
in  front  of  my  eyes  expanded  all  at  once 
and  shut  out  the  swaying  room. 

"Why  did  n't  you  come  to  Bucharest?" 
he  asked  again. 

"How  white  and  thin  you  are.  Is  n't  he, 
Marie?"  I  observed,  the  blackness  gone 
from  my  eyes. 

"Please  answer  me.  What  is  the  matter? 
You  both  look  sick." 

"We  are  under  arrest  for  espionage," 
Marie  and  I  suddenly  burst  out  in  chorus, 
and  we  both  began  talking  as  fast  and  as 
loud  as  we  could. 

"That's  all  right.  I  '11  fix  things  for  you," 
Peter  reassured  us  when  we  stopped  at  last, 
out  of  breath.  I  suddenly  wanted  to  hide 
him  so  they  would  n't  get  him  as  well  as 
ourselves.  He  was  so  self-confident.  What 
did  he  know  of  how  things  happened  over 
here?  He  was  talking  and  acting  like  a 
rational  human  being,  which  was  sure 

[  81  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

proof  he  was  in  no  position  to  cope  with  the 
Russian  Secret  Service.  I  felt  a  frantic  de- 
sire to  get  him  out  of  the  room  and  make 
him  promise  that  on  no  account  would  he 
admit  he  knew  us. 

"You  must  go  at  once,"  I  whispered. 
"There's  a  spy  at  the  door.  If  he  sees  you, 
they'll  arrest  you,  too.  Please  go,  go  at 
once."  And  I  tried  to  push  him  away. 

"You  poor  things,"  he  said,  laughing. 
"There's  no  need  to  be  frightened  like  this. 
Of  course  I  won't  go.  Why  should  they 
arrest  me?" 

"Why  should  they  have  arrested  us?  Oh, 
you  don't  know."  My  teeth  were  chattering. 

"Now,  look  here,"  he  said  seriously. 
"You've  been  alone  and  scared,  and  I'm 
sure  you  have  n't  eaten  anything  for  days. 
Now,  don't  think  about  this  any  more.  I'll 
get  you  out  in  no  time.  Have  you  a  cigar- 
ette, anybody?" 

I  sat  back,  and  my  body  stopped  shak- 
ing. Everything  seemed  very  still.  I  had 
the  distinct  thought,  "What  is  to  come, 
will  come,"  and  I  drew  a  deep  breath  that 
seemed  to  come  from  my  toes.  It  was 
enough  Peter  was  here,  after  all. 

We  talked  till  three  in  the  morning. 
Peter  had  gone  to  Bucharest  to  meet  us, 
-  [  82  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

and  when  we  did  n't  arrive,  he  took  the 
first  train  to  Kiev.  I  began  to  believe  in 
his  bodily  presence.  Before  he  left  to  go 
back  to  his  hotel,  I  had  regained  my  con- 
viction he  was  a  match  for  even  the  Rus- 
sian Secret  Service. 

Can  you  imagine  how  we  feel  to-day? 
We  go  tottering  round  the  room,  taking 
things  up  and  putting  them  down  again, 
in  a  nervous  anxiety  to  do  something.  We 
chirp  the  rag-times  popular  in  America 
two  years  ago.  We  feel  as  though  we  were 
just  recovering  from  a  sickness,  with  a 
pleasant  bodily  weakness  like  a  convales- 
cent's in  the  springtime.  Peter  brought 
me  a  bunch  of  red  roses  when  he  came  over 
this  morning.  I  am  writing  this  while  he  is 
seeing  Mr.  Douglas,  the  English  Consul. 

So  much  love  to  you  from 

RUTH. 

September. 
Darlingest  ones:  — 

It  has  been  three  weeks  since  our  arrest, 
and  to-day  is  the  first  time  we  have  been 
allowed  to  leave  the  room  and  go  outdoors. 
We  are  still  under  house-arrest,  but  we  can 
go  out  in  the  garden,  while  two  soldiers 
guard  the  entrance.  Isn't  it  ludicrous? 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

A  gendarme  came  last  night  and  an- 
nounced with  ponderous  importance  that 
we  were  to  be  permitted  the  liberty  of  the 
garden  if  we  gave  our  word  of  honor  not 
to  try  to  escape.  We  signed  two  red-sealed 
documents,  and  so  we  can  go  into  the 
garden  while  two  soldiers  with  bayonets 
look  to  it  that  we  don't  go  any  farther. 

Peter  had  to  bully  me  into  leaving  my 
room  this  afternoon.  I  did  n't  want  to  get 
healthy.  I  had  grown  so  used  to  the  pro- 
portions of  our  rooms  I  hated  to  make  the 
effort  to  adjust  myself  to  any  others.  But 
Peter  came  back  from  his  daily  round  of 
visits  to  the  English  Consul,  and  the  Army 
Headquarters,  and  the  office  of  Kiev's  civil 
governor,  and  produced  from  his  coat- 
pocket  a  rubber  ball.  We  were  to  play  ball 
out  in  the  garden,  he  said.  So,  after  some 
persuasion  Marie  and  I  went  out  into  the 
garden  with  him.  How  weak  I  was.  My 
legs  trembled  going  downstairs,  and  I  was 
exhausted  when  I  reached  the  benches  in 
the  garden. 

Janchu,  seeing  us,  ran  up  joyfully  and 
took  his  mother  by  the  hand.  "This  is  my 
mother,"  he  said  in  Polish,  looking  around 
proudly  at  the  other  children  who  were 
playing  there. 

[  84] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

Every  one  looked  at  us  curiously.  A 
head  appeared  at  every  window  in  the  big 
stone  apartment  house.  I  saw  the  two 
women  spies  who  had  undressed  us.  They 
were  evidently  employed  as  servants  in 
some  family,  for  one  was  ironing  and  the 
other  fixing  a  roast  for  the  oven.  They,  too, 
looked  out  at  us.  I  felt  hot  and  indignant 
and,  yes,  ashamed  as  though  I  had  been 
guilty.  I  wanted  to  hide.  I  felt  inadequate 
to  life.  People  were  too  much  for  me. 
People  —  people,  the  living  and  the  dead. 
What  a  weight  of  life!  I  could  hardly 
control  my  tears.  Weakness,  I  suppose, 
for  the  soles  of  my  feet  and  my  finger- 
tips hurt  me  as  though  my  nerves  were 
bared  to  the  touch. 

I  looked  up  over  the  garden-wall.  The 
tree-tops  were  yellow.  While  we  had  been 
locked  in  our  room,  the  season  had  changed. 
Autumn  was  upon  us.  I  shivered.  There 
was  a  lavender  mist  over  the  city  dimming 
the  radiance  of  the  gold  and  silver  church 
domes.  How  beautiful  Kiev  ^as!  The 
church-bells  were  so  mellow-toned;  and  the 
children's  shrill  laughter  and  cries  as  they 
played  in  the  garden.  But  it  tired  me. 
Every  impression  seemed  to  bruise  me. 

Peter  bought  some  little  Polish  cakes, 

[  85  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

and  we  had  hot  tea  to  cheer  us  up  —  three 
and  four  glasses  of  tea. 

Good-night.  Sometimes,  when  I  think  of 
you,  I  don't  see  all  of  you,  but  instead  a 
particular  gesture,  or  I  hear  an  inflection 
of  voice  that  is  too  familiar  to  be  borne. 
Now  I  see  mother's  hands  and  they  are 
beautiful. 

RUTH. 

September. 

Dearests:  — A 

Every  day  now  we  go  out  into  the  garden. 
We  play  ball  and  play  tag  in  the  wind  to 
get  warm. 

There  is  a  private  hospital  at  one  end 
of  our  apartment  house,  supported  by  a 
wealthy  Polish  woman.  Two  or  three  times 
a  week  she  visits  the  patients,  young  offi- 
cers who  go  out  into  the  garden  with  her 
and  kiss  her  hand  and  talk  and  flirt.  She 
sits  on  a  garden-bench  surrounded  by  her 
young  men,  a  big  woman  in  black,  with  a 
long  black  veil,  talking  vivaciously,  using 
her  hands  in  quick,  expressive  gestures, 
patting  their  cheeks,  leaning  forward  to 
give  their  hands  an  impulsive  squeeze. 
When  she  laughs,  which  is  often,  the  black 
line  of  a  mustache  on  her  upper  lip  makes 
[  86] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

the  white  of  her  teeth  whiter  still.  The 
days  when  she  is  n't  there,  the  convales- 
cents flirt  with  the  nurses.  There  is  noth- 
ing horrible  about  this  hospital.  The  pa- 
tients are  only  slightly  wounded,  and  wear 
becoming  bathrobes  when  they  lounge 
round. 

The  window-ledges  of  the  rooms  are 
gay  with  flowers.  Almost  always  a  phono- 
graph is  going,  "Carmen,"  or  "Onegin,"  or 
"Pagliacci."  Sometimes,  Peter  and  I  one- 
step  to  the  music  on  the  pavement  outside, 
and  the  officers  and  nurses  crowd  to  the 
windows  and  clap  and  cry,  "Encore!" 
Often,  after  sundown,  when  the  children 
have  gone  indoors,  and  we  go  out  for  a  walk 
before  dinner,  we  see  a  patient  with  a  band- 
age around  his  head,  perhaps,  but  both 
arms  well  enough  to  be  clasping  a  pretty 
nurse  in  them.  They  laugh  and  we  laugh. 
There  is  no  cynicism  about  it.  It's  bigger 
than  that,  it  seems  to  me. 

Into  the  garden  come  many  street  mu- 
sicians. They  play  and  sing,  and  showers 
of  kopecks  rain  down  from  the  windows. 
Two  little  girls  came  a  few  days  ago.  They 
were  Tziganes,  barefooted,  with  gay  petti- 
coats and  flowered  shawls  and  dangling 
earrings.  Their  dark  hair  was  short  and 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

curly.  One  of  the  children  played  a  bala- 
laika and  sang  in  a  broken,  mournful  voice 
that  did  not  at  all  belong  to  her  age.  The 
other  —  who  wore  the  prettiest  dress,  yel- 
low, with  a  green  and  purple  shawl  — • 
danced  like  a  little  marionette  on  a  string, 
not  an  expression  in  her  pointed,  brown 
face,  but  every  now  and  then  accelerating 
the  pace  of  her  dance,  and  giving  sharp, 
high  cries.  Then,  suddenly,  they  stopped 
in  the  middle  of  a  measure,  and  held  out 
their  aprons  for  money.  A  window  on  the 
ground  floor  opened  and  a  very  pretty  wo- 
man leaned  out.  I  have  seen  her  many 
times.  She  is  Polish,  the  daughter  of  a 
concierge,  and  now  the  mistress  of  a  young 
Cossack,  who  is  leaving  shortly  for  the 
front.  She  has  heavy,  pale-yellow  hair, 
wound  around  her  head  in  thick  braids,  and 
she  wears  pearls,  opaque  like  her  skin.  She 
beckoned  the  little  girls  into  her  room. 
They  went  eagerly.  Soon  I  heard  them 
singing  there. 

When  we  were  with  Dr. ,  from  the 

Red  Cross  hospital  this  afternoon,  a  soldier 
came  up  to  us  and  saluted.  He  was  a 
miserable-looking  creature,  in  a  uniform 
too  big  for  him.  His  face  was  unshaven, 
his  beard  gray  and  sparse,  and  his  eyes  red 

[  S8  1 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

and  blinking  and  full  of  pain.  He  slouched 
away  again  in  a  moment,  his  eyes  staring 
down  at  the  sidewalk  under  his  feet. 

"What  did  he  want?"  I  asked. 

"He  wants  brandy.  He's  leaving  for  the 
front  to-morrow,  and  he  asked  me  to  write 
out  a  doctor's  prescription  so  he  could  get 
a  little  brandy.  Poor  fellow.  It  was  im- 
possible, of  course,  but  I'd  have  done  it 
gladly.  He  said  he'd  been  wounded  and 
discharged,  and  had  to  go  back  to  the  front 
and  leave  his  family,  helpless,  again.  The 
second  time  must  be  so  much  worse  than 
the  first.  You  know  what  it's  like  out 
there." 

RUTH. 

September. 
Darlingest  ones:  — 

At  last  I  have  heard  from  the  letter  about 
the  Jewish  detention  camp.  The  English 
Consul  came  to  our  rooms  yesterday  after- 
noon and  said  he  was  to  act  as  interpreter 
for  the  head  of  the  secret  police.  I  was  to 
be  ready  to  answer  his  questions  about 
eight  o'clock  that  night.  He  told  me  to 
keep  my  temper  and  say  as  little  as  possi- 
ble. 

Shortly  before  eight  the  Consul  and  the 

[  89] 


BLACK  RUSSIA  ' 

chief  came  round  together.  We  all  sat 
down.  I  was  quite  calm.  So  often  I  had 
created  my  own  terror  of  this  moment  that 
when  it  came  I  met  it  with  relief.  I  even 
felt  a  sense  of  superiority  over  the  chief  of 
the  secret  service.  I  don't  know  why,  I'm 
sure.  Perhaps  because  I  was  no  longer 
afraid  of  him.  It  was  as  though  I  had  stuck 
my  head  under  a  pump  of  ice-cold  water. 
I  felt  very  clear-headed.  I  had  a  curious 
feeling  that  things  were  as  they  were  and 
nothing  I  could  say  could  change  them. 

"Are  you  a  Jew?"  he  asked  me  first. 

"No." 

"Is  your  mother  or  father  Jewish?" 

"No.  There  is  no  Jewish  blood  in  our 
family."  I  thought  of  Dad's  Quakerism 
and  smiled.  I  wondered  what  he  would 
have  said  if  he  had  been  there. 

"Then  why  have  you  such  sympathy  for 
them?"  He  looked  at  me  narrowly,  as 
though  he  had  me  there. 

"Because  they  are  suffering." 

"Tck."  He  clicked  his  tongue  against 
the  roof  of  his  mouth  in  the  most  skeptical 
fashion. 

He  took  up  my  letter,  translated  into 
Russian,  and  went  through  it.  The  whole 
thing  was  a  farce.  I  answered  the  questions 

[90] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

he  asked  me,  but  they  did  n't  get  us  any- 
where. Of  course,  everything  I  knew  about 
the  Jewish  detention  camp  I  had  written  in 
my  letter.  All  I  could  do  was  to  repeat 
what  I  had  said  there.  And  when  he  asked 
questions  like,  "Who  said  five  old  men 
had  been  killed  along  the  way?"  or,  "How 
did  you  know  throwing  the  bodies  into  the 
Dnieper  had  brought  cholera  into  Kiev 
this  summer?"  I  could  only  reply,  "I  was 
told  it."  "Who  told  you?"  "I  forget." 
When  he  got  up  to  go  he  said:  — 
"This  letter  makes  your  case  a  very 
serious  one.  Of  course,  we  can't  have  such 
things  as  that  published  about  us.  Have 
you  ever  written  before?" 
I  said,  "No." 

"You  are  n't  reporting  for  any  journal? " 
I  assured  him  it  was  only  a  letter  I  had 
written  my  mother  and  father. 

"It  goes  out  of  my  hands  to-night.  I 
shall  hand  it  with  a  report  to  the  Chief  of 
the  General  Staff." 

"When  shall  I  hear  from  them?" 
"They  will  let  you  know  as  soon  as  possi- 
ble. It's  unfortunate  you  should  have 
written  it.  Otherwise,  I  could  have  settled 
the  matter  myself.  As  it  is,  it  is  a  matter 
for  the  military  authorities.  Of  course,  such 

[91 1 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

a  letter  written  in  the  war  zone,  at  a  time 
like  this  — "  He  stopped  himself.  "Good- 
night. Good-night."  He  clicked  his  heels 
and  bowed  himself  out  of  the  room. 

"Ouf!"  we  all  said. 

"Mrs.  Pierce,  promise  me  you  won't  put 
your  pen  to  paper  again  while  you  are  in 
Russia,"  the  English  Consul  said,  smiling. 

"  But  is  n't  it  ridiculous  —  absurd  — 
disgusting!"  I  said. 

"People  are  sent  to  Siberia  for  less,"  the 
Consul  said.  "But  don't  be  frightened, 
Mrs.  Pierce.  It  will  come  out  all  right." 

"Of  course.   But  when?" 

"Seichas"  he  replied,  smiling. 

"Seichas"  How  I  hate  the  expression. 
"Peter,  you'd  better  cable  for  some  more 
money.  Heaven  knows  when  we'll  get  out 
now,"  I  said. 

Peter  sends  love  too.  We  are  hungry  for 
news  from  you,  and  we  picture  greedily  the 
piles  of  letters  we  shall  find  waiting  for  us 
in  Bulgaria.  I  try  not  to  be  anxious  about 
you  —  But  I  wake  up  at  night  and  this 
silence  of  months  is  like  a  dead  weight  on 
my  heart. 

RUTH. 


IV 

September. 
Dear  ones:  — 

The  Germans  are  advancing.  Nothing 
seems  able  to  stop  them.  And  every  day 
brings  new  refugees  from  the  country. 
They  come  in  bewildered,  frightened  hordes 
and  pass  through  the  city  streets,  directed 
by  gendarmes.  They  do  as  they  are  told. 
There  is  something  dreadful  in  their  sub- 
mission and  in  the  gentle  alacrity  with 
which  they  obey  orders. 

The  other  day  we  were  waiting  on  a 
street  corner  for  a  line  of  the  refugees' 
covered  carts  to  pass.  Suddenly,  a  woman, 
walking  by  a  horse's  head,  collapsed.  She 
sank  on  to  the  paving-stones  like  a  bundle 
of  dusty  rags.  People  stopped  to  look,  but 
no  one  touched  her.  The  refugees  behind 
left  their  carts  and  came  up  to  see  what 
had  halted  the  procession.  They,  too, 
stood  without  touching  her  —  peasants  in 
dusty  sheepskins,  leaning  on  their  staffs, 
looking  down  at  the  woman  who  had  fallen 
out  of  their  ranks.  A  gendarme  elbowed 
his  way  through  the  crowd.  He  began  to 

[93 1 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

wave  his  arms  and  strike  his  boot  with  his 
whip,  and  shout  at  the  weary-eyed,  un- 
comprehending peasants.  At  last,  two  of 
them  tucked  their  staffs  under  their  arms 
and,  leaning  down,  picked  up  the  fainting 
woman.  They  carried  her  round  to  her 
cart  and  laid  her  down  on  the  straw,  her 
head  on  the  lap  of  one  of  her  children.  For 
a  moment  the  child  looked  down  at  her 
mother's  white  face,  so  strangely  still,  and 
then,  terrified,  suddenly  jumped  to  her  feet 
and  her  mother's  head  fell  back  against  the 
boards  with  a  dull  thud.  The  children  hud- 
dled together,  crying.  A  peasant  whipped 
up  the  little  horse,  and  the  procession  be- 
gan to  move  on. 

There  seems  to  be  a  horrible  fear  behind 
them  that  never  lets  them  halt  for  long. 
The  Germans  —  After  all,  they  are  hu- 
man beings  like  the  Russians.  They,  too, 
have  their  wounded  and  dying.  People 
here  speak  of  special  red  trains  that  leave 
the  front  continuously  for  Germany.  These 
red  trains  are  full  of  human  beings  whose 
brains  have  been  smashed  by  the  horrors 
of  war.  The  German  soldier  is  not  super- 
natural. Then  I  think  of  those  terrible  red 
trains  rushing  through  the  dark,  filled  with 
raving  maniacs,  of  men  who  have  become 

[94] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

like  little  children  again.  And  yet  when 
you  hear,  "The  Germans  are  advancing! 
They  are  coming!"  the  German  army 
seems  to  take  on  a  supernatural  aspect,  to 
become  a  ruthless  machine  that  drives 
everything  before  it  in  its  advance,  and  in 
its  wake  leaves  a  country  stripped  of  life 
—  all  the  people  and  cottages  rubbed  off 
the  face  of  the  earth. 

People  here  in  Kiev  feel  the  same  terror 
of  the  German  advance.  Can  nothing 
stop  it?  A  panic  has  swept  over  the  city 
that  makes  every  one  want  to  run  away 
and  hide.  They  crowd  the  square  before 
the  railway  station  and  camp  there  for 
days,  waiting  to  secure  a  place  on  the 
trains  that  leave  for  Petrograd  or  Odessa. 
For  three  weeks  Peter  has  been  waiting 
for  his  reservation  to  get  to  Petrograd. 
Our  case  drags  on  so.  He  wants  to  see  the 
Ambassador  personally.  But  the  trains 
are  packed  with  terrified  people.  Men 
leave  their  affairs  and  go  down  to  the 
square  with  their  families  and  baggage. 
They  sleep  on  the  cobble-stones,  wrapped 
up  in  blankets,  their  heads  on  their  bags. 
It  is  autumn,  and  the  nights  are  cold  and 
rainy,  and  the  children  cry  in  discomfort. 
I  have  seen  the  square  packed  with  mo- 

[95] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

tionless,  sleeping  people,  and  in  the  morn- 
ing I  have  seen  them  fight  for  places  in 
the  train,  transformed  by  this  unbearable 
terror  of  the  Germans  into  beasts  that 
trample  each  other  to  death.  And  when 
the  train  goes  off,  they  settle  back,  waiting 
for  their  next  chance.  Perhaps  some  are 
so  much  nearer  the  station,  but  others 
are  carried  away  wounded  or  dead.  Who 
knows  what  they  are  capable  of  till  they 
are  so  afraid? 

My  dressmaker's  sister  was  a  cripple. 
Fear  had  crept  even  into  her  sick-room. 
When  Olga  came  to  try  on  my  dress,  she 
fumbled  and  pinned  things  all  wrong  in 
her  haste.  I  spoke  to  her  sharply  and  asked 
her  to  be  more  careful.  Then  she  burst 
into  tears  and  told  me  about  her  sister.  It 
appeared  her  sister  was  afraid  to  be  left 
alone.  Every  time  Olga  left  the  room,  her 
sister  caught  at  her  dress  and  made  her 
promise  not  to  desert  her.  She  thought  of 
the  Germans  day  and  night.  She  cursed 
Olga  if  she  should  ever  run  away  and  leave 
her  to  them.  A  few  days  later,  Olga  came 
again.  She  was  so  pale  and  thin  it  fright- 
ened me,  and  she  did  n't  hurry  nervously 
any  more  when  she  fitted  me. 

66  What  is  it,  Olga?  You  are  sick,"  I  said. 

[96] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

"My  sister  is  dead.  Last  Saturday,  it 
was  late  when  I  left  you,  and  I  stopped  on 
the  way  home  to  get  some  herring  for  sup- 
per. I  was  later  than  usual,  and  when  I  got 
home  I  found  my  sister  dead.  She  had 
died  from  fear.  She  thought  I  had  de- 
serted her.  She  had  half  fallen  out  of  her 
chair  as  though  she  had  tried  to  move. 
How  could  she  think  I  would  desert  her 
ever?  Have  n't  I  taken  care  of  her  for  fif- 
teen years?  But  it  was  fear.  She  has  been 
like  one  out  of  her  mind  since  they  have 
been  so  near  Kiev.  What  will  they  do  in 
Kiev?  They  say  the  Germans  are  only 
two  days'  march  away!" 

All  day  the  church-bells  have  been  ring- 
ing for  special  prayers.  I  went  into  one  of 
the  churches  in  the  late  afternoon.  It  was 
dark  and  filled  with  people  who  had  come 
to  pray  for  help  to  stop  the  Germans. 
v  There  were  soldiers  and  peasants  and 
townspeople,  all  with  their  thoughts  fixed 
on  God.  I  cannot  tell  you  how  solemn  it 
was.  All  the  people  united  in  thought 
against  the  common  menace.  Women  in 
black,  soldiers  and  officers  with  bands  of 
black  crepe  round  their  sleeves,  square, 
stolid-looking  peasants,  with  tears  run- 
ning down  their  cheeks.  They  knelt  on 

[971 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

the  stone  flagging,  their  eyes  turned  to- 
ward the  altar  with  its  gold  crucifix  and 
jeweled  ikons.  The  candle-flames  only 
seemed  to  make  the  dimness  more  obscure. 
And  the  deep  voice  of  the  priest  chanting 
in  the  darkness:  all  Russia  seemed  to  be 
on  its  knees  offering  its  faith  as  a  bulwark 
against  the  Germans.  When  I  turned  to 
leave,  I  came  face  to  face  with  an  old 
woman.  The  tears  were  still  wet  on  her 
cheeks,  but  she  was  smiling. 

"Kiev  is  a  holy  city,"  she  said.  "God 
will  protect  the  tombs  of  his  holy  Saints." 
And  she  brushed  by,  paying  no  more  atten- 
tion to  me. 

There  are  placards  in  all  the  banks,  offer- 
ing to  give  people  the  value  of  their  jewels 
and  silverware. 

Extra  pontoon  bridges  are  thrown  across 
the  Dnieper,  ready  for  the  retreat  of  the 
Russian  troops.  Though  there  are  lines  of 
trenches  and  barbed-wire  entanglements 
before  the  city,  no  eifort  will  be  made  to 
defend  it,  as  it  would  probably  mean  its 
destruction.  I  wonder  what  the  Germans 
will  do  when  they  get  here  ?  They  are  hu- 
man beings,  but  I  can't  help  but  think  of 
Belgium,  and  then  I  am  sick  with  fear. 
At  other  times,  it  seems  the  one  way  to 

[98] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

bring  our  affair  with  the  Secret  Service  to 
a  finish.  How  strange  it  will  be  to  have  no 
longer  a  Russian  army  between  the  Ger- 
mans and  Kiev.  No  more  a  wall  of  flesh 
to  protect  us.  Poor  soldiers,  without  a 
round  of  ammunition,  fighting  with  naked 
hands.  They  will  cross  the  Dnieper  to  one 
side  of  the  city,  crowding,  fighting,  falling 
together.  And  the  German  cannon  driving 
them  on,  and  crashing  into  the  city,  some- 
times, wiping  out  whole  streets  of  towns- 
people. And  then,  the  gray  lines  of  the 
Germans  running  into  Kiev.  The  thou- 
sands of  blue-eyed  Germans  and  their 
pointed  helmets  and  guttural  speech  tak- 
ing possession  of  everything. 

As  we  came  down  the  hill  to-day,  we 
saw  great  vans  drawn  up  before  the  Gov- 
ernor's mansion.  Soldiers  were  loading 
them  with  the  rich  furnishings  of  the  house. 
Evidently,  the  Governor  had  no  intention 
of  letting  his  things  fall  into  the  Germans' 
hands.  How  strange  it  looked  —  the  fever- 
ish haste  with  which  the  house  was  being 
emptied ! 

At  the  station  a  special  train  was  wait- 
ing to  take  the  Governor's  things  to  a 
place  of  safety — and  the  crowds  were 
waiting  to  escape  with  their  lives!  Now 

[991 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

every  one  with  any  sort  of  a  boat  that  will 
float  is  making  a  fortune  taking  the  terri- 
fied townspeople  down  the  river.  There 
are,  of  course,  horrible  accidents,  for  the 
boats  are  overcrowded.  One  completely 
turned  turtle  with  its  load  of  men  and 
women  and  children.  And  yet  the  Gover- 
nor's things  must  be  removed  to  a  place 
of  safety. 

Aeroplanes  scout  over  the  city  every 
day,  and  at  night  you  can  see  their  lights 
moving  overhead  in  the  darkness.  Some- 
times they  fly  so  low  that  you  can  hear  the 
whir  of  their  engines.  For  the  moment  you 
don't  know  if  they're  Russian  or  enemy 
ones. 

And  all  night  long  high-powered  auto- 
mobiles rush  up  the  hill  to  the  General 
Headquarters,  bearing  dispatches  from  the 
front. 

I  lie  in  bed,  and  it  is  impossible  for  me  to 
sleep.  It  is  as  if  I  were  up  over  Kiev  in  an 
aeroplane,  myself.  I  can  see  millions  of 
Germans  marching  along  the  roads  from 
Warsaw,  dragging  their  cannon  through 
the  mud,  fording  streams,  with  their  field 
kitchens  and  ambulances,  moving  onward 
irresistibly  toward  the  golden  domes  of 
Kiev. 

t  ioo] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

You  seem  far  away  to-night.  Only  I 
love  you.  I  can't  love  you  enough. 

RUTH. 

October. 
Darlingest  Mother  and  Dad:  — 

This  afternoon  I  went  up  to  the  English 
Consulate  with  Sasha.  As  we  turned  the 
corner  we  saw  a  long  gray  procession  of 
carts  crawling  down  the  hill  toward  us.  I 
stopped  and  watched  them  pass  me,  one 
after  the  other,  crowded  over  to  the  side 
of  the  road  by  the  usual  traffic  of  a  busy 
street.  Peasants  walked  by  the  horses' 
heads,  men  in  dusty  sheepskin  coats,  or 
women  muffled  up  somehow,  their  hands 
hidden  in  the  bosoms  of  their  waists  for 
warmth.  They  stared  ahead  with  a  curi- 
ous, blind  look  in  their  eyes,  as  though 
they  did  not  realize  the  noise  and  move- 
ment of  the  city  life  about  them.  How 
strange  it  was,  the  passing  of  this  silent 
peasant  procession  by  the  side  of  the  clang- 
ing trains  and  gray  war  automobiles ! 

"Who  are  these  people?"  I  asked  Sasha. 

"They  must  be  the  fugitives,"  she  re- 
plied. "Every  day  they  come  in  increasing 
numbers.  I  have  heard  the  Kiev  authori- 
ties are  trying  to  turn  them  aside  and  make 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

them  go  round  the  outskirts;  for  what  can 
a  city  do  with  whole  provinces  of  homeless 
and  hungry  peasants?" 

"You  mean  they  are  the  refugees  who 
have  been  driven  out  of  their  homes  by 
the  enemy?"  I  asked. 

"Yes.  By  the  Germans  and  Austrians." 

The  carts  jolted  slowly  down  the  hill, 
the  brakes  grinding  against  the  wheels, 
the  little  rough-coated  horses  holding  back 
in  the  shafts.  Sometimes,  where  there 
should  have  been  two  horses,  there  was 
only  one.  The  others  evidently  had  been 
sold  or  else  died  on  the  way.  Only  one 
small  horse  to  drag  a  heavy  double  cart 
crowded  with  people  and  furnishings.  One 
little  horse  looked  about  to  drop.  His  sides 
were  heaving  painfully  and  his  eyes  were 
glazed.  "Why  don't  they  stop  and  rest," 
I  thought.  "Why  does  that  man  keep  on? 
His  horse  will  die,  and  then  what  will  he 
do?" 

"What  do  they  do  when  their  horses 
give  out?"  I  asked  Sasha. 

"What  can  they  do?"  she  replied. 
"What  did  they  do  when  they  were  forced 
to  leave  their  farms  and  lands  ?  They  bear 
it.  The  Russian  people  have  a  great  capac- 
ity for  suffering.  Think  of  it  —  what  this 

[    102] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

means  now  —  hundreds  and  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  people  made  homeless  and 
sent  wandering  over  the  face  of  the  earth. 
Think  of  the  separations  —  the  families 
broken  up  —  the  bewilderment.  A  month 
ago,  perhaps,  they  had  their  houses  and 
lands  and  food  to  eat.  They  were  muzhiks. 
And  now  they  are  wandering,  homeless, 
like  Tziganes.  Ah,  the  Russian  people  were 
born  into  a  heritage  of  suffering,  and  to  us 
all  the  future  is  hidden." 

I  kept  my  eyes  on  the  endless  procession. 
Some  of  the  carts  were  open  farm  wagons, 
piled  with  hay,  and  hung  with  strange 
assortments  of  household  utensils.  Frying- 
pans  and  kettles  were  strung  along  the 
sides,  enameled  ones,  sometimes,  that 
showed  a  former  prosperity.  Inside  were 
piles  of  mattresses  and  chairs;  perhaps  a 
black  stovepipe  stuck  out  through  the 
slatted  sides  of  the  cart.  The  women  and 
children  huddled  together  in  the  midst  of 
their  household  goods,  wrapped  up  in  the 
extra  petticoats  and  waists  and  shawls 
they  had  brought  along  —  anything  for 
warmth.  The  children  were  pale  and 
pinched,  and  some  of  them  had  their  eyes 
closed  as  though  they  were  sick.  If  they 
looked  at  you,  it  was  without  any  curios- 

[  103  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

ity  or  eagerness.  How  pitiful  the  indiffer- 
ence of  the  children  was! 

Sometimes  the  carts  were  covered  with 
faded  cloth  stretched  over  rounded  frame- 
works like  gypsy-wagons.  There,  the  old 
babas  sat  on  the  front  seats,  eyes  like  black 
shoe-buttons,  with  their  lives  almost  fin- 
ished. They  seemed  the  least  affected  by 
the  misery  and  change.  They  occupied  the 
most  comfortable  places,  and  held  the 
bright-colored  ikons  in  their  arms  —  the 
most  precious  possession  of  a  Russian 
home.  Perhaps  a  dog  was  tied  under  the 
wagon,  or  a  young  colt  trotted  along  by  its 
mother's  side. 

It  was  as  though  there  had  been  a  great 
fire,  and  every  one  had  caught  up  what  he 
could  to  save  from  destruction:  homes 
broken  into  little  bits  to  be  put  together 
again  in  a  strange  land. 

An  open  cart  broke  down  in  front  of  us. 
The  woman  got  out  to  help  her  husband. 
She  had  a  round,  pock-marked  face,  as 
expressionless  as  wood.  She  wore  a  bright 
shawl  over  her  hair,  and  a  long  sheepskin 
coat,  with  the  sleeves  and  pockets  beauti- 
fully embroidered  in  colors.  It  was  dirty, 
now,  but  indicated  she  had  been  well-to-do 
once.  She  limped  badly. 

t  104  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

"Good-evening,"  I  said. 

"Good-evening,  excellency,"  she  replied 
civilly. 

"Are  you  hurt?"  I  asked. 

"My  feet  are  blistered  from  the  walk- 
ing," she  replied.  "I  take  turns  with  my 
husband." 

"Where  are  you  from?" 

"Rovno." 

"How  long  have  you  been  on  the  way?" 

"Many  weeks.  Who  knows  how  long?" 

"And  where  are  you  going?" 

"Where  the  others  go.  Somewhere  into 
the  interior." 

The  procession  had  not  halted,  but, 
turning  out  for  the  broken-down  cart,  con- 
tinued uninterruptedly  down  the  hill. 
Every  now  and  then  the  peasant  looked 
up  anxiously. 

"We  must  hurry.  We  mustn't  be  left 
behind,"  he  muttered. 

"What  do  you  eat?"  I  asked  the  woman. 

"What  we  can  find.  Sometimes  we  get 
food  at  the  relief  stations,  or  we  get  it 
along  the  way." 

"Do  the  villages  you  pass  through  help 
you?"  I  persisted. 

"They  do  what  they  can.  But  there 
are  so  many  of  us." 

[  105  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

"Can't  you  find  cabbages  and  potatoes 
in  the  fields?"  I  asked. 

The  woman  looked  at  me  suspiciously 
for  a  moment,  and  did  not  reply. 

"Why  do  you  want  to  know  these 
things?"  she  asked,  after  a  silence.  "What 
business  is  it  of  yours?" 

"  I  want  to  help  you." 

"Help  us."  She  shook  her  head.  "But 
I'll  tell  you,"  she  said.  "I  did  take  some 
potatoes  once.  It  was  before  the  cold 
weather.  I  dug  them  out  of  a  field  we 
passed  through  after  dark.  No  one  saw  me. 
My  children  were  crying  with  hunger  and 
I  had  nothing  to  give  them.  So  I  dug  up  a 
handful  of  potatoes  in  the  dark.  But  God 
saw  me  and  punished  me.  I  cooked  the  po- 
tatoes over  a  fire  by  the  roadside,  but  He 
kept  the  heat  from  reaching  the  inside  of 
the  potatoes.  Two  of  my  children  sickened 
and  died  from  eating  them.  It  was  God's 
punishment.  We  buried  them  along  the 
road.  My  husband  made  the  crosses  out 
of  wood  and  carved  their  names  on  them. 
They  lie  way  behind  us  now — unsung.  But 
perhaps  those  who  pass  along  the  road  and 
see  the  crosses  will  offer  up  a  prayer." 

"I  will  burn  candles  for  them,"  I  said, 
"What  were  their  names?" 

I  106! 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

"Sonia  and  Peter  Kolpakova,  your 
excellency.  You  are  good.  God  bless  you!" 
And  she  kissed  my  hands. 

I  looked  at  the  three  children  who  were 
left.  They  sat  in  the  cart  silently,  sur- 
rounded by  the  incongruous  collection  of 
pots  and  pans,  and  leaning  against  a 
painted  chest.  The  chest  was  covered  with 
dust,  but  you  could  still  see  a  bunch  of 
bright-painted  flowers  behind  the  chil- 
dren's heads. 

"Poor  little  things,"  I  said.  "Are  they 
cold?" 

"It's  hard  on  the  children,"  the  mother 
replied  stolidly.  "They  can't  stand  it  as 
we  can.  We  are  used  to  trouble.  We  know 
what  life  is.  But  the  children  —  they  are 
sick  most  of  the  time.  They  have  no 
strength  left.  What  can  we  do  for  them  ? 
We  have  no  medicines.  Have  you  any 
medicines?"  she  asked,  with  a  sudden, 
hopeful  glint  in  her  dull,  wide-set  eyes. 
"No?"  Her  face  regained  its  impassivity. 

Her  husband  straightened  himself,  grunt- 
ing. He  had  finished  tying  the  broken 
wheel  together  with  rope. 

"Come,  we  must  be  moving.  Hurry,  or 
we'll  be  left  behind,"  he  said,  going  to  the 
little  horse's  head. 

[  107] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

The  woman  climbed  back  into  the  cart 
and  took  the  youngest  child  in  her  arms. 
A  feeble  wail  came  from  the  dull-colored 
bundle.  Her  husband  turned  the  horse 
into  the  procession  again. 

Still  the  carts  were  coming  over  the  hill, 
gray  and  dusty,  with  the  peasants  and 
their  wives  walking  beside  the  horses' 
heads.  What  a  river  of  suffering!  What  a 
smell  came  from  it!  And  automobiles  and 
tramways  rushed  by. 

Is  this  the  twentieth  century? 

October. 

I  delayed  mailing  my  last  letter,  so  I 
shall  tell  you  about  another  glimpse  I've 
had  of  the  refugees.  Yesterday,  as  we  sat 
drinking  tea,  we  heard  the  rumble  and 
creak  of  heavy  wagons  outside  the  pension. 
The  noise  reached  us  distinctly  in  spite  of 
the  windows  being  hermetically  sealed 
with  putty  for  the  winter.  At  first  we 
thought  it  was  the  regular  train  of  carts 
that  climb  Institutska  Oulitza  every  eve- 
ning at  six  o'clock  carrying  provisions  to 
the  barracks.  But  the  rumble  and  creak 
persisted  so  long  that  I  went  to  the  win- 
dow at  last  to  see  why  there  were  so  many 
more  carts  than  usual,  j. 
[  108  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

There  was  a  procession  of  carts,  but  in- 
stead of  going  up  the  hill  in  the  direction 
of  the  barracks,  it  was  descending  the  hill, 
and  instead  of  soldiers  in  clumsy  uniforms, 
peasants  in  bell-shaped  sheepskin  coats 
walked  by  their  horses'  heads,  snapping 
the  long  lash  whips  they  carried  in  their 
hands.  I  recognized  the  covered  gypsy 
wagons  and  the  open  carts  with  their 
bulky  loads.  It  was  too  dark  to  see  dis- 
tinctly, but  I  knew  they  were  refugees  by 
the  strings  of  kettles  along  the  sides  of  the 
carts,  which  caught  the  electric  light  in 
coppery  flashes.  And  in  the  open  wagons 
I  could  see  the  pale  disks  of  faces.  As  I 
watched,  the  procession  came  to  a  stand- 
still and  the  drivers  collected  in  little 
groups  under  the  white  globes  of  the  street 
lamps.  I  went  outdoors  and  crossed  the 
street  to  them. 

I  approached  a  group  of  three  men. 

" Good-evening,"  I  said. 

"  Good-evening,  Panna,"  they  replied. 

"Have  you  come  far?" 

"Far?  I  should  say  we've  been  two 
months  on  the  road,"  replied  the  best- 
dressed  man  of  the  three.  He  had  fur  cuffs 
and  collar  on  his  long  sheepskin  coat,  and 
his  boots  were  strong  and  well  made. 

[  109  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

"  Can  you  tell  me  where  we  can  get  some 
tobacco?"  he  asked. 

I  directed  him  down  the  street  a  little 
way.  He  took  a  piece  of  silver  from  a 
leather  purse  he  wore  round  his  neck,  and 
gave  it  to  one  of  his  companions,  who 
left  on  the  errand.  The  other  man  went 
round  to  the  tail  of  the  cart  and  took 
down  two  bags  of  grain  for  the  horses' 
supper. 

"Good  horses  you  have  there,"  I  said, 
to  say  something. 

"  Yes,  indeed;  the  best  horses  a  man  ever 
had;  less  good  ones  would  have  died  on 
the  road  long  ago.  I  bought  them  for  fifty 
roubles  apiece,  and  I  would  n't  take  two 
hundred  and  fifty  for  them  to-day.  But, 
then,  they're  all  I  have  left  of  back  there." 
He  spoke  in  a  quiet  voice,  scratching  his 
stubby,  unshaven  face,  absent-mindedly. 

"Is  he  traveling  with  you?"  I  asked, 
pointing  to  the  man  who  was  slinging  the 
grain-bags  round  the  horses'  necks. 

"Yes.  I  picked  him  up  along  the  road. 
His  horse  had  died  under  him  and  he 
counted  himself  no  longer  a  human  being. 
What  was  he,  indeed,  with  nothing  he 
could  call  his  own  in  the  world  any  more  ? 
I  let  him  come  along  with  me.  I  had  extra 
[  no] 


'  BLACK  RUSSIA 

room.  So  I  let  him  come  along  with  me." 
His  voice  had  no  expression  in  it. 

"But  have  n't  you  a  family?"    I  asked. 

"I  have  three  children,"  he  replied. 

"It  must  be  hard  to  take  care  of  chil- 
dren at  such  a  time  as  this." 

"God  knows  it  is,"  he  replied.  There 
was  a  sudden  desperate  note  in  his  voice. 
"It's  a  woman's  business.  But  my  wife 
died  on  the  way.  A  month  and  a  half  ago 
—  soon  after  we  started.  It  seems  soon, 
now,  but  we'd  been  long  enough  on  the 
road  to  kill  her  with  the  jolting  and  misery 
of  it." 

"Was  she  sick?" 

"  She  died  in  childbirth.  There  was  no 
one  to  take  care  of  her,  and  nothing  for 
her  to  eat.  I  made  a  fire,  and  she  lay  on 
the  ground.  All  night  she  moaned.  She 
died  toward  morning.  The  baby  only 
lived  a  few  hours.  It  was  better  it  should 
die.  What  was  ahead  of  it  but  suffering? 
It  was  a  boy,  and  my  wife  and  I  had  al- 
ways wanted  a  boy.  But  I  would  n't  have 
minded  so  much  if  the  little  wife  had  lived. 
It's  hard  without  her." 

The  man  returned  with  the  tobacco  and 
the  three  peasants  lighted  cigarettes.  All 
was  quiet.  I  heard  nothing  but  the  champ- 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

ing  of  the  horses  as  they  munched  the 
grain  and  the  whistling  of  the  wind  through 
the  poplars  in  the  convent  garden. 

"Kiev  is  a  big  city  —  a  holy  city,  I've 
heard.  Many  from  our  town  have  made  a 
pilgrimage  here,"  the  rich  peasant  ob- 
served. 

For  the  moment  I'd  forgotten  where  I 
was.  Now  I  heard  the  city  noises;  the  foot- 
steps grinding  on  pavements;  the  whistle 
and  grinding  of  trains.  And  the  lights  from 
the  city  reddened  the  mists  that  rose  from 
the  Dnieper. 

The  carts  in  front  began  to  move  on. 

" Where  are  we  going?"  —  "What  are 
the  orders?"  —  "Is  there  a  relief  station 
here?"  every  one  cried  at  once. 

"Good-bye.   A  good  journey,"  I  cried. 

"Thank  you.   Good-bye." 

The  men  stepped  out  into  the  road 
again.  I  watched  cart  after  cart  pass  me. 
The  women  looked  straight  out  between 
the  horses'  ears,  and  showed  no  curiosity 
or  wonderment  at  being  in  a  big  city  for 
the  first  time  in  their  lives.  Strange  sights 
and  faces  had  no  significance  for  them  any 
more. 

I  ducked  under  a  horse's  nose  and  went 
indoors  again. 

[   112] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

There  is  something  shameful  in  our 
security.  We  have  shelter  and  bread.  We 
can  only  feel  life  indirectly,  after  all.  We 
are  always  muffled  up  by  things.  And 
America.  A  pathologic  fear  clutches  me, 
for  how  will  it  all  end  ? 

My  love  to  you  every  minute. 

RUTH. 

October. 
Dearests:  — 

There  seems  no  beginning  or  end  to  my 
stay  here.  How  strange  it  is  to  look  back 
to  July  and  remember  the  long,  hot  days 
and  the  languorous  nights  when,  in  spite 
of  the  war,  people  walked  in  the  gardens 
and  listened  to  the  music  and  drank  punch 
out  of  tea-cups,  pretending  it  was  tea.  The 
still,  starlit  nights  of  July. 

I   remember  a   dinner  Princess   P 

gave  at  Koupietsky  Park  a  few  nights  after 
my  arrival  in  Russia.  Everything  was  so 
new  to  me.  Our  table  was  set  out  on  the 
terrace,  overlooking  the  Dnieper,  with  the 
music  and  stir  of  people  in  the  distance. 
An  irresponsible  joy  filled  my  heart  as  I 
looked  down  at  the  black,  winding  river 
with  its  shadowy  banks  and  the  fantastic 
shimmer  of  lights  on  the  water.  The  city 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

lights  crowded  down  to  the  very  water's 
edge;  then  the  drifting  red  and  green  lights 
of  steamers  and  ferry-boats  moving  on 
the  black,  magic  stream,  and  beyond,  the 
flat  plain,  silent  and  mysterious,  with,  over 
the  horizon  rim,  the  thunder  and  clang 
of  war.  But  war  was  far  away  those  first 
days  I  was  in  Russia.  I  hardly  thought 
of  it. 

The  dome  and  square  walls  of  a  monas- 
tery were  momentarily  whitened  by  a 
wheeling  searchlight,  and  high  up  against 
the  dusky,  starlit  sky  was  printed  a  shin- 
ing gold  cross.  Women's  dresses  glimmered 
in  the  darkness  like  gray,  widespread 
wings  of  moths,  and  laughter  came  from 
the  curve  of  the  terrace  overlooking  the 
monastery  garden. 

"My  child,  there  are  tears  in  your  eyes; 
how  pretty!"  the  Princess  cried,  taking 
my  hand  in  hers  and  stroking  it  with  her 
small,  cold  fingers. 

There  were  other  Americans  present 
beside  myself,  and  I  knew  the  Princess 
loved  one  of  them.  It  was  to  make  him 
jealous,  I  knew,  that  she  held  my  hand 
in  hers  throughout  dinner.  She,  herself, 
hardly  ate  anything,  only  smoked  one 
cigarette  after  another.  There  were  all 

[  114] 


BLACK  RUSSIA  ' 

sorts  of  zakouski,  stuffed  tomatoes  and 
cucumbers  and  queer  little  fishes  in  oil, 
and  pickled  sturgeon  and  mushrooms,  and 
salads  and  caviar,  and  there  was  kvass  to 
drink,  —  deep  red,  —  and  a  champagne 
cup  served  in  a  teapot,  and  cigarettes  all 
through  the  meal. 

The  Princess  was  middle-aged  and 
wanted  to  appear  youthful;  so  shje  dyed 
her  hair  blue-black  which  was  harsh  for 
her  pointed  face,  and  wore  costly,  too 
elaborate  clothes  from  Paris.  But  her 
body  showed  delicately  round  under  the 
laces  and  chiffons,  and  she  was  quick  and 
light  in  her  gestures  like  a  bird.  Her  hus- 
band, who  had  been  twice  her  age,  had 
died,  leaving  her  large  estates  and  much 
money.  Now  she  moved  about  Russia 
with  a  maid  and  a  wee  little  dog  and 
numberless  trunks,  frivolously  seeking  her 
pleasure.  Her  eyes  were  black  and  glitter- 
ing, and  her  mouth  red  and  thin  and  flexi- 
ble. She  had  caressing,  spoiled  ways  with 
every  one  from  the  American  whom  she 
called  "Meester"  to  her  chow  dog,  and 
all  she  asked  from  any  one  was  amusement. 

"  I  like  Americans,"  she  said  with  shame- 
less flattery.  "  So  much  I  like  them.  The 
women  —  and  the  men.  I  shall  go  to 

I  "S  1 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

New  York  after  the  war,  and  you  will  show 
me  your  famous  cabarets,  and  —  what  do 
you  call  it?"  She  appealed  to  "Meester." 

"Broadway  —  good  old  Broadway,"  he 
replied  indulgently. 

"Ah,  yes.  B-r-r-oadway.  And  I  will 
dance  all  night.  I  dance  magnificently.  Is 
it  not  so,  Meester?  Yes,  I  will  go  to  New 
York  and  become  just  like  an  American." 

After  dinner  we  went  to  a  wrestling- 
match,  and  "Meester"  took  the  Princess, 
radiant  and  vivacious  and  paying  all  the 
bills,  back  to  the  Continental. 

Since  July  war  has  come  nearer  Kiev. 
The  hospitals  are  full  of  maimed  and 
wounded  soldiers  who  fought  to  defend 
Russia.  They  made  a  bulwark  of  their 
breasts.  It  was  as  though  one  single  giant 
breast,  hundreds  of  versts  broad,  thrust 
itself  between  the  Germans  and  home. 

And  it  is  winter  now.  The  days  are  short 
with  an  icy,  gray  mist  from  the  Dnieper, 
and  flurries  of  snow.  There  is  a  shortage 
of  coal,  and  we  sit  shivering  in  our  apart- 
ment. We  drag  the  covers  off  the  beds  and 
wrap  ourselves  up  in  them  while  we  read 
books  from  the  circulating  library  or  play 
three-handed  bridge.  The  wind  rattles  the 
windows  and  streaks  the  panes  with  snow 

[  116] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

and  rain.  But  however  dirty  they  get, 
they  must  remain  unwashed  till  spring; 
for  they  are  sealed  for  the  winter  with 
putty,  and  you  can  open  only  one  small 
pane  at  the  top.  The  apartment  is  darker 
than  ever.  Not  once  does  the  sun  shine 
into  our  rooms.  We  see  the  sunlight  in  the 
street,  but  the  dark  shadow  of  the  building 
lengthens  minute  by  minute,  stretching 
itself  across  the  street  and  reaching  up  over 
the  convent  wall  like  the  smothering  black 
hand  of  a  giant,  till  only  the  tips  of  the 
cypresses  and  poplars  in  the  gardens  are 
red  in  the  late  sunlight. 

At  tea-time  we  go  to  "  Francois's "  or 
to  some  other  little  sweet-shop,  in  order 
to  get  warm.  There,  we  drink  glass  after 
glass  of  weak  tea  and  eat  little  Polish 
cakes,  and  look  over  the  English  and 
French  periodicals. 

It  is  dark  when  we  go  out  into  the  street 
again,  and  the  air  is  frosty.  The  officers 
wear  short  gray  coats,  braided  and  lined 
with  fur,  and  fur  caps.  The  women  are 
muffled  in  seal  and  sable,  which  make 
the  skin  look  clear  and  white  and  their 
eyes  brilliant.  Even  the  peasants  wear 
sheepskin  coats,  bell-shaped  and  richly 
embroidered.  Marie  has  winter  clothes, 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

but  the  warmest  thing  I  possess  is  my 
traveling  suit  I  wore  here  in  June,  which 
has  been  getting  thinner  and  thinner  ever 
since.  My  feet,  in  low  summer  pumps,  are 
swollen  and  burning  with  chilblains.  I 
must  get  some  high  shoes  when  our  next 
money  comes.  You  see,  that  is  the  trouble. 
We  are  promised  our  passports  from  day 
to  day,  and,  expecting  to  go  at  any  time, 
we  try  to  get  along  with  what  money  we 
have,  and  wait  to  buy  clothes  till  we  get 
back  to  Bucharest.  But  our  passports  are 
not  given  us  and  our  money  gets  low.  We 
are  waiting  for  money  now,  and,  of  course, 
a  cold  snap  has  set  in  just  when  we  can't 
possibly  buy  anything.  Peter's  summer 
suit  hangs  on  him  in  folds.  The  heaviest 
iron  could  n't  crease  it  into  even  temporary 
shape.  When  we  went  to  the  cinemato- 
graph last  night  he  wore  Marie's  black 
fur  coat  to  keep  from  freezing. 

"Look  at  that  man,"  we  heard  a  wo- 
man say  in  the  street.  "He's  wearing  a 
woman's  coat!" 

Yes,  we  go  from  cafe  to  cinematograph 
and  try  and  keep  warm. 

I've  never  liked  moving  pictures  before. 
Here  they  are  presented  differently  than 
in  America.  Some  of  the  plays  I've  seen 
[118  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

have  the  naivete  and  simplicity  of  a  con- 
fession. Others  interpret  abnormal,  psy- 
chopathic characters  whose  feelings  and 
thoughts  are  expressed  by  the  actors  with 
a  fine  and  vivid  realism.  There  is  the  exul- 
tation of  life,  and  the  despair,*  the  aggres- 
sion and  apathy,  the  frivolity  and  the  re- 
volt. The  action  is  taken  slowly.  There 
are  no  stars.  You  look  at  the  screen  as 
though  you  were  looking  at  life  itself. 
And  the  films  don't  always  have  happy 
endings,  because  life  is  n't  always  kind. 
It  often  seems  senseless  and  cruel  and 
crushes  men's  spirits.  I  wish  we  could 
have  these  films  in  America  instead  of  the 
jig-saw  puzzles  I've  seen. 

October. 

There  is  a  gypsy  who  sells  fruit  at  the 
corner  of  Institutska  Oulitza,  a  woman  so 
enormous  that  she  resembles  a  towering 
mountain,  and  her  customers  look,  beside 
her,  like  tiny  Russian  toys.  Every  one 
looks  at  her  curiously,  and  I  have  seen 
several  gentlemen  in  fur  pelisses,  with  gold- 
headed  canes,  stop  and  speak  to  her.  In 
the  morning  she  wheels  up  her  cart  by  the 
curbing  and  polishes  the  pears  and  apples 
with  the  end  of  her  shawl  till  they  shine. 


BLACK  RUSSIA' 

Then  she  piles  them  up  in  red  and  yellow 
pyramids  and  waits  for  customers,  her 
hands  on  her  hips.  Everything  about  her 
is  crude  and  flaming  and  inextinguishable 
like  life  itself.  Her  scarlet  skirt  lights  up 
the  whole  street.  It  floats  about  her,  and 
when  she  bends  over  to  serve  a  customer, 
you  can  see  the  edges  of  green  and  yellow 
and  pink  and  brown  petticoats  underneath 
as  her  overskirt  tilts  up.  The  lines  of  her 
body  are  brutal  and  compact.  Her  dark, 
mulberry-colored  shawl  is  stretched  tightly 
across  her  full  bosom.  Her  eyebrows  meet 
over  her  nose  in  a  heavy,  broad  line  like  a 
smudge  of  charcoal,  and  her  nose  is  spongy, 
and  her  lips  swollen  and  red  from  taking 
snuff .  She  holds  her  black  and  silver  snuff- 
box in  her  hand  or  hides  it  away  in  a 
pocket  in  her  voluminous  skirt  when  she 
serves  some  one.  Her  fingers  are  covered 
with  rings  and  she  wears  yellow  hoops  in 
her  ears.  I  am  repulsed  as  well  as  attracted. 
She  is  like  a  bold,  upright  stroke  of  life, 
and  then  I  see  her  crafty  eyes  and  notice 
how,  in  spite  of  her  size,  when  she  moves 
it  is  with  the  softness  and  flexibility  of  a 
huge  cat. 

Peter  went  to  Petrograd  to-day  and  he 
will  stay  there  till  he  gets  our  passports. 
[  120  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

He  would  have  gone  a  month  ago,  but  first 
came  the  panic  from  the  German  advance, 
and  then  the  railways  were  used  only  for 
military  purposes.  Now,  Marie  and  I  are 
alone,  waiting  for  a  telegram  from  him. 


October. 

Today,  the  chief  of  the  secret  service 
came  and  told  us  all  political  prisoners 
were  to  be  sent  on  to  Siberia.  He  told  us 
to  make  a  small  bundle  of  necessary  things 
and  be  ready  to  leave  at  any  time.  With 
Peter  in  Petrograd!  I  asked  him  where  we 
were  going  and  he  shrugged  his  shoulders. 
I  went  to  Mr.  Douglas,  who  has  wired 
Peter.  Also,  he  is  going  to  see  the  chief  and 
try  and  keep  in  touch  with  us.  We  won't 
leave  till  the  last  moment.  But  already 
many  of  the  hospitals  have  been  moved, 
and  certain  prisoners.  I  suppose  I  must 
destroy  these  letters  to  you.  But  I  will 
wait  till  the  last  moment.  I  want  so  much 
for  you  to  get  them  and  know  what  has 
happened,  because  I  shan't  see  you,  to 
tell  you  with  my  voice,  for  over  a  year 
still.  I  have  written  so  fully  for  that 
reason. 

A  jew  days  later. 

We  are  still  here,  and  there  is  more  hope 
in  the  situation.  There  is  a  persistent  re- 

[    122   ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

port  in  the  papers,  and  it  is  repeated  in  the 
streets  and  houses,  that  the  Germans  have 
been  stopped  by  Riga  and  Dvinsk.  Large 
bodies  of  troops  are  moved  through  Kiev, 
day  and  night,  for  the  front.  Regular 
train  service  is  suspended  by  this  move- 
ment of  troops. 

Huge  vans  pass  through  the  city,  carry- 
ing aeroplanes  to  the  aviation  field  outside 
the  barracks.  Once  we  saw  a  wrecked  one 
being  sent  to  be  repaired.  A  troop  of  small 
boys  followed  it,  looking  curiously  at  the 
broad,  broken  wings  and  the  tangle  of  steel 
framework. 

Guns  are  arriving,  too.  We  see  them 
being  carted  through  the  streets.  And 
early  this  morning  we  heard  cannon.  Our 
first  thought  was  of  the  Germans,  and  we 
lay  in  bed,  stiff  with  fright.  Later,  we 
heard  they  were  the  new  cannon  being 
tried  out  before  being  sent  to  the  front. 
They  say  that  fresh  ammunition  has  been 
received  from  Japan  and  America.  All 
trains  are  held  up  to  let  these  trainloads 
of  guns  and  cannon  and  ammunition  go 
tearing  over  the  rails  to  the  front  to  save 
Russia.  And  just  in  time.  I  see  the  open 
cars  packed  and  covered  and  guarded  by 
soldiers.  I  lie  in  bed  and  hear  the  whistle 

[  123  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

and  shriek  of  the  trains  in  the  night,  and 
I  imagine  row  upon  row  of  long  iron- 
throated  cannon  staring  up  at  the  stars. 

The  Czar  has  arrived  in  Kiev  for  a  con- 
ference at  Headquarters.  He  came  during 
the  night,  and  no  one  knows  when  he  will 
leave.  There  was  no  demonstration,  and 
the  police  break  up  any  groups  of  more 
than  three  persons  in  the  streets. 

A  dozen  or  so  Japanese  officers  passed 
through  Kiev,  too.  They  were  bound  for 
the  front,  escorting  their  guns  and  ammu- 
nition. How  curious  they  looked  beside 
the  big,  na'ive  Russians.  They  were  like 
porcelain  figurines  with  impenetrable,  yel- 
low faces,  mask-like,  and  tiny  hands  and 
feet.  What  a  finished  product  they  appear, 
and  yet  they  go  to  the  front  and  observe 
the  latest  methods  of  warfare  and  multiply 
their  merchant  marine  while  the  rest  of  the 
world  is  spending  itself. 

October. 

I  went  to  a  military  hospital  to-day.  It 
was  up  on  a  hill,  a  huge  place,  formerly  a 
school,  I  think,  with  a  broad  piazza  where 
the  convalescents  walked  in  their  gray 
bathrobes.  Inside  were  rows  and  rows  of 
cots,  and  on  every  cot  a  wounded  man.  It 

[124] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

appeared  that  a  fresh  batch  had  arrived 
from  the  front,  and  the  doctors  were  just 
finishing  with  them.  There  was  a  foul 
smell  of  blood  and  sweat  and  anaesthetics, 
and  the  light  came  dismally  through 
the  dirty  window-panes,  showing  dimly 
the  rows  and  rows  of  pale,  weary  faces 
on  the  thin  pillows.  Sometimes  the  gray 
blankets  came  up  to  the  chin,  and  the 
man  looked  dead  already,  he  was  so  dread- 
fully still,  with  his  closed  eyes  and  waxlike 
face.  Another  moaned  continuously,  mov- 
ing his  head  from  side  to  side  —  "Oh,  oh 
—  Oh,  oh."  His  eyes  were  open,  and  hard 
and  bright  with  fever.  Several  had  their 
heads  wound  with  strips  of  bandages.  You 
would  hardly  have  known  they  were  hu- 
man. Two  or  three  were  blind,  with  the 
bandage  only  round  their  eyes,  and  it  was 
strange  to  see  the  expression  their  hands 
took  on  —  workmen's  hands  with  stubby 
fingers,  now  white  and  helpless-looking, 
and  picking  at  the  cover  aimlessly. 

A  nurse  told  me  how  an  officer  who  had 
been  blinded  and  was  about  to  be  dis- 
charged and  sent  home,  had  committed 
suicide  the  other  day.  In  some  way  one  of 
his  men,  who  had  been  wounded  in  the 
arm,  had  been  able  to  smuggle  in  a  revolver 

[  125  1 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

to  him.  The  officer  killed  himself  in  the 
middle  of  the  night. 

"I  don't  suppose  he  knew  whether  it 
was  day  or  night,  and  took  a  chance  that 
no  one  was  looking,"  I  said. 

"I  think  he  knew  it  was  night,"  she 
replied.  "He  could  tell  by  the  others' 
breathing.  I  was  night  nurse.  He  was  dead 
before  I  reached  him.  The  soldier  gave 
himself  up  of  his  own  accord.  He  will  be 
court-martialed,  of  course,  though  every 
one  knows  he  did  the  best  thing.  He  said 
to  us,  'He  was  my  captain.  He  ordered 
me  to  get  the  revolver,  and  I  only  obeyed 
orders.  I  would  do  it  again/  We  had  a 
hard  time  the  rest  of  the  night  to  quiet 
the  men." 

In  a  small  room  to  one  side  were  six  men 
gone  mad.  They  were  quite  harmless  and 
lay  quietly  in  bed.  Besides  having  their 
reason  smashed  to  bits  by  the  horrors  at 
the  front,  they  were  badly  wounded.  I  was 
ashamed  to  stand  there  looking  at  them. 
What  was  I?  Suddenly,  one  of  them,  a 
young  boy  surely  not  more  than  twenty- 
one  or  twenty-two,  caught  sight  of  us,  and 
he  fixed  his  eyes  upon  us  in  a  curious,  con- 
centrated way  as  if  to  assure  himself  we 
were  real.  And  then,  all  at  once,  abject 
[  126  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

terror  leapt  into  his  eyes.  His  mouth 
opened  and  the  cords  of  his  neck  stood  out. 
He  threw  both  arms  before  his  face  as  if 
to  ward  off  somebody  or  something.  He 
began  to  scream  out  quick,  unintelligible 
words  in  a  high-pitched,  staccato  voice.  I 
looked  fearfully  at  the  others  to  see  if  his 
terror  would  be  communicated  to  them. 
But  they  were  apparently  oblivious  of  each 
other,  wrapped  up  in  their  separate  lives 
and  experiences.  One  middle-aged  man, 
with  a  rough,  reddish  beard,  was  smiling 
mildly  and  smoothing  the  sheet  as  though 
it  had  been  somebody's  hair.  We  left  the 
room,  leaving  the  nurse  to  calm  the  scream- 
ing man.  I  thought  of  the  terrors  and  fears 
and  memories  in  that  room:  the  snatches 
of  memories  pieced  together  that  made  up 
the  actual  lives,  now,  of  those  broken  men 
in  there. 

"Are  they  —  do  they  suffer?"  I  asked 
the  doctor. 

"No.  They  don't  seem  to  realize  that 
they  are  wounded  and  suffer  the  way  nor- 
mal people  would  with  their  wounds.  The 
only  thing  is,  they  all  have  moments  of 
terror,  when  it's  all  we  can  do  to  quiet 
them.  They  think  the  wall  of  the  room 
is  the  enemy  moving  down  on  them.  I 

M  "7  I 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

guess  they  went  through  hell  all  right,  there 
at  the  front!" 

" Will  they  get  better?" 

"We  can't  tell.  We  have  a  specialist 
studying  just  such  cases.  These  men  seem 
pretty  well  smashed,  to  me." 

In  one  corner  lay  a  young  man  propped 
up  with  pillows.  A  nurse  was  holding 
his  hand.  His  eyes  were  looking  at  her 
so  trustfully.  He  hardly  seemed  to  be 
breathing  and  his  face  was  bloodless  — 
even  his  lips  were  dead  white.  And  as  I 
looked,  he  gave  a  little  sigh,  and  his  eyes 
closed  and  his  body  sagged  among  the 
pillows.  The  nurse  bent  over  him  and  then 
straightened  herself.  Quickly  she  arranged 
a  screen  round  the  bed.  When  she  walked 
away,  I  could  see  she  was  crying  uncon- 
trollably. 

"Is  he—?* 

"Yes.  He's  dead,"  the  doctor  replied. 
"He's  been  dying  for  a  week.  He  was 
terribly  wounded  in  the  stomach,  and 
there  was  nothing  we  could  do  for  him. 
It  was  a  repulsive  case  to  care  for,  but 
Sister  Mary  had  full  charge  of  it.  She  sat 
with  him  for  hours  at  a  time.  In  the  be- 
ginning, to  encourage  him,  she  bought  a 
pair  of  boots  he  was  to  wear  when  he  got 
[  128] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

well.    For  days,  now,  he's  been  out  of  his 
head  and  fancied  she  was  his  mother." 

And  life  presses  as  close  to  death  as  that 
—  while  I  was  looking  at  him,  he  had  died. 
I  just  managed  to  reach  the  door  before  I 
fainted. 

October. 

The  Governor  of  Kiev  has  been  removed. 
He  was  too  cautious.  It  was  a  bad  ex- 
ample^ 


VI 

October. 
Darling  ones:  — 

There  is  the  most  careful  avoidance  of 
any  official  responsibility  here  in  trying  to 
find  out  where  our  passports  are,  and  who 
is  to  return  them.  We  have  already  un- 
raveled yards  of  red  tape,  and  still  there  is 
no  end.  Of  course,  ever  since  Peter  came 
he  has  followed  a  schedule  of  visits  —  one 
day  to  the  English  Consul;  another  day 
to  the  secret  police,  then  to  the  Military 
Governor,  the  Civil  Governor,  the  Chief 
of  Staff,  and  back,  in  desperation,  to  the 
English  Consul.  There  is  an  American 
Vice-Consul  here,  but  he  is  wholly  inef- 
fectual, since  he  has  not  yet  been  officially 
received.  His  principal  duty  consists  in 
distributing  relief  to  the  Polish  refugees. 
Mr.  Douglas,  the  English  Consul,  is  our 
one  hope,  and  he  is  untiring  in  his  efforts 
to  help  us.  If  we  ever  get  out,  it  will  be 
due  to  htm.  The  English  Government  is 
behind  its  representatives  here  in  a  way 
that  the  American  State  Department  is 
not.  Partly,  I  suppose,  this  is  because 

[  130  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

America  has  no  treaty  with  Russia,  on 
account  of  the  Jew  clause.  At  any  rate, 
you  might  just  as  well  be  a  Fiji  Islander  as 
an  American,  for  all  the  consideration  you 
get  from  officialdom. 

Did  I  write  you  about  the  naturalized 
American  Jew  in  the  detention  camp?  He 
had  come  back  to  Galicia  in  the  summer  of 
1914  to  see  his  sister  married.  After  the 
outbreak  of  the  war,  he  was  refused  per- 
mission to  leave  the  country,  and  when 
the  wholesale  clean-up  started,  he  was 
deported  with  the  others.  The  day  I  vis- 
ited the  detention  camp  he  had  just  ar- 
rived, and,  knowing  we  were  Americans, 
he  tried  to  secure  our  aid.  He  had  man- 
aged to  keep  his  American  passport,  and 
brought  it  out  to  us  to  prove  his  naturali- 
zation and  to  strengthen  his  demand  to  be 
set  free  as  an  American  citizen.  The  over- 
seer, hearing  his  excited  voice  and  seeing 
us  examine  a  large  sheet  of  paper,  came  up. 
He  looked  like  a  butcher,  in  his  dirty- 
white  linen  coat,  his  legs  planted  apart, 
his  hands  fingering  his  short  whip.  The 
way  in  which  he  joined  our  group  and 
made  himself  one  with  us,  without  so  much 
as  by  your  leave,  was  disturbing.  The  cool 
self-assurance  of  even  a  petty  Russian 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

official  is  sinister.  They  are  straw  men  to 
your  reason,  but  hard  facts  if  you  bump 
up  against  them.  Our  curiosity  flagged, 
conscious  as  we  were  all  the  time  of  his  un- 
blinking ferret-eyes  on  us,  and  we  showed 
a  certain  alacrity  to  return  the  passport 
to  its  rightful  owner.  When  we  were 
handing  it  back  to  the  Jew,  the  overseer 
thrust  out  his  hand  and  said,  "Let  me 
see  it." 

There  was  nothing  for  the  Jew  to  do  but 
hand  it  over.  The  overseer  could  not  read 
a  word  of  English,  of  course,  but  from  the 
big  red  American  seal  he  could  recognize 
it  as  an  official  document. 

Suddenly,  he  tore  it  in  halves,  and  as  the 
Jew  tried  to  grab  it  out  of  his  hands,  he 
cuffed  the  Jew  down,  and  continued  delib- 
erately to  tear  it  into  tiny  bits. 

"  I  am  an  American  and  that  is  my  pass- 
port," the  Jew  cried. 

"That's  what  I  think  of  an  American 
passport,"  the  overseer  replied,  looking  us 
over  with  incredible  impudence  as  he 
walked  away. 

The  rest  of  Russian  officialdom  must 
regard  American  rights  in  much  the  same 
way,  since  it  is  four  months  now  that  we 
have  been  detained. 

[  132  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

I  went  to  the  headquarters  of  the  secret 
police  the  other  day  with  Mr.  Douglas.  It 
is  located  in  the  opposite  end  of  the  town, 
down  a  quiet  side  street  —  an  unobtru- 
sive, one-storied  brown  house  that  gives 
the  impression  of  trying  to  hide  itself  from 
people's  notice.  It  is  reached  by  a  narrow, 
stone-flagged  path,  crowded  in  between 
two  houses  which  block  its  view  from  the 
street.  There  are  four  windows  in  a  row 
on  the  front  fagade,  all  with  the  curtains 
drawn.  These  four  blind  windows  add  to 
the  secretive  appearance.  Over  the  front 
steps  the  yellowing  leaves  of  a  lime  tree 
rustled  in  the  wind  and  detached  them- 
selves one  by  one. 

We  rang  the  bell.  While  we  waited,  I 
was  conscious  of  being  watched,  and, 
glancing  up  quickly,  I  saw  the  curtain  at 
one  of  the  windows  fall  back  into  place. 
The  door  opened  a  crack,  and  a  white  face 
with  a  long,  thin  nose,  and  horn-rimmed 
spectacles  with  smoky  glass  to  hide  the 
eyes,  peered  out  at  us  furtively.  Mr. 
Douglas  handed  the  spy  his  card  and  the 
door  was  shut  softly  in  our  faces. 

In  about  three  minutes  the  door  was 
opened  again,  and  a  gendarme  in  uniform 
ushered  us  into  a  long  room  thick  with 

1 133  j 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

stale  tobacco-smoke.  He  gave  me  a  chair, 
and  while  we  waited  I  looked  about  at  the 
walls  with  the  brightly  colored  portraits 
of  the  Czar  and  the  Czarina  and  the  royal 
family,  and  the  ikon  in  one  corner.  "Give 
up  all  hope  all  ye  who  enter  here." 

The  room  was  silent  except  for  the 
scratch  of  pens  on  paper.  The  secret-serv- 
ice spies  sat  at  long  tables,  writing  labo- 
riously, and  smoking.  They  all  wore  civil- 
ian clothes,  and  I  recognized  most  of  them. 
I  had  passed  them  on  the  street  or  sat 
beside  them  in  restaurants,  and  three  had 
come  with  the  chief  to  arrest  us.  I  won- 
dered what  they  were  writing.  Some  one 
was  being  betrayed  or  ruined.  That  was 
how  they  lived.  I  looked  for  the  mark  of 
their  calling  on  them,  but  at  first  they 
appeared  an  ordinary  crowd,  pale,  with  a 
thick,  unhealthy  pallor,  as  though  from  an 
indoor  life.  Their  suits  were  poor  enough, 
—  worn  threadbare,  —  and  their  finger- 
nails were  dirty.  Furtively  they  glanced 
up  at  me  and  examined  me  curiously,  and 
then  gave  quick,  frightened  looks  on  either 
side  to  see  if  their  comrades  had  observed 
their  interest  in  me.  What  a  mediocre, 
shabby  crowd,  with  their  low  foreheads 
and  dead-white  skin  and  dirty  linen,  and, 

1 134] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

yes,  the  stamp  on  them  that  made  them 
infamous!  It  was  as  though  their  profes- 
sion affected  them  the  way  that  living  in 
a  close,  dark  room  would,  stupefying  and 
making  them  bestial. 

And  then  the  chief  came  in,  accompanied 
by  two  spies  with  black  portfolios  under 
their  arms.  When  he  saw  us,  he  grew  white 
with  anger.  He  looked  like  a  German, 
spurred  and  booted,  with  square  head  and 
jaw  and  steel-like  eyes  and  compressed, 
cruel  lips.  He  was  the  only  well-dressed 
one  in  the  crowd,  but  his  livery  was  the 
same  as  theirs.  He  was  their  superior, 
that  was  all,  and  how  I  loathed  him! 

"He's  angry  because  we  were  brought  in 
here,"  Douglas  whispered  under  his  breath. 

The  chief  turned  his  back  on  us. 

The  spies  scribbled  away  furiously,  their 
noses  close  to  their  paper,  not  daring  to 
look  up. 

We  were  taken  into  another  room,  a 
small  back  room,  bare  except  for  a  table 
and  sofa  and  a  tawdry  ikon  in  the  farthest 
corner.  And  there  we  waited  fully  fifteen 
minutes  in  absolute  silence.  How  silent 
that  house  was,  full  of  invisible  horrors! 
The  headquarters  of  the  secret  police  — 
why  should  n't  it  be  terrifying  when  you 

[  135] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

think  of  the  men  and  women  who  have 
been  brought  here  in  secret,  and  their  ex- 
istence suddenly  snapped  off:  secret  arrest, 
secret  trial,  or  no  trial  at  all,  and  then  a  se- 
cret sending-off  up  north,  out  of  the  reach 
of  the  world!  What  strange  abortions  of 
life  this  Government  brings  forth!  Is  it 
curious  that  thinking  men  and  women,  who 
have  lived  apparently  well-regulated  lives, 
suddenly  throw  bombs  at  a  minister  in 
a  railway  station,  or  at  an  official  as  he 
drives  to  the  palace  in  dress  uniform,  with 
jeweled  decorations  on  his  breast?  I  ran 
my  hand  over  the  faded  sofa-covering, 
wondering  who  had  sat  there  before  me. 

Suddenly  the  chief  came  into  the  room, 
closing  the  door  carefully  behind  him.  He 
was  quite  calm  again. 

"What  do  you  want?"  He  looked  at 
Douglas. 

Douglas  explained  how  anxious  we  were 
to  get  out  of  Russia,  how  we  had  insuffi- 
cient money  for  cold  weather,  how  my 
husband's  business  called  for  his  immediate 
presence,  and  so  forth,  all  of  which  we 
had  gone  over  at  least  three  times  a  week 
since  my  arrest,  and  all  of  which  was  a 
matter  of  complete  indifference  to  the 
secret  police.  They  had  failed  to  find  any 

[136] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

proof  of  espionage,  which  was  their  charge 
against  us,  and  my  letter,  their  only  evi- 
dence, had  been  passed  on  and  was  snarled 
up  somewhere  in  official  red-tape.  Now 
they  washed  their  hands  of  me. 

"We  can  do  nothing.  It  is  out  of  our 
hands."  He  was  extremely  courteous, 
speaking  German  for  my  benefit.  "It  is 
unfortunate  that  Frau  Pierce  should  have 
written  the  letter.  I  was  obliged  to  send 
it  on  to  the  General  Staff.  You  should 
have  a  reply  soon." 

There  was  nothing  more  to  be  said. 
Douglas  was  conciliatory,  almost  ingra- 
tiating. My  nerves  gave  way. 

"A  reply  soon!"  I  burst  out.  "I'm 
sick  of  waiting.  If  we  have  the  liberty  of 
the  city,  surely  there  can't  be  anything 
very  serious  against  us.  It's  an  outrage 
keeping  our  passports.  I'm  an  American 
and  I  demand  them."  I  was  almost  crying. 

"You  must  demand  them  through  your 
Ambassador,  meine  Frau." 

I  knew  that  he  knew  we  had  been  tele- 
graphing him  since  our  arrest  and  my  im- 
potence made  me  speechless  with  rage. 
Douglas  took  advantage  of  my  condition 
to  beat  a  hasty  retreat. 

As  we  were  going  through  the  doorway, 

[  137] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

the  chief  said  carelessly,  "By  the  way, 
how  did  you  happen  to  find  this  house?" 

"I  have  been  here  before/'  Douglas 
replied. 

"Thank  you.   I  was  only  curious." 

I  could  feel  the  spies'  eyes  on  my  back 
as  we  went  down  the  path. 

"Mrs.  Pierce  —  Mrs.  Pierce,  you  must 
not  lose  your  temper  that  way." 

"I  don't  care!"  I  cried.  "I  had  no  way 
to  express  what  I  felt." 

"I  know,"  Douglas  agreed  thoughtfully. 

We  hailed  a  droshky  and  got  in. 

"I  have  a  friend  —  a  Pole,"  said  Doug- 
las. "For  no  reason  except  that  he  was  a 
Pole,  they  made  a  revision  at  his  house, 
and  among  other  things  took  away  every 
calling  card  they  found.  They  made  a 
revision  then  on  each  one  of  those  people 
whose  names  they  found.  Though  they 
found  nothing  incriminating  in  his  pos- 
session, they  make  him  report  every  day 
at  the  police  headquarters.  A  year  ago  he 
was  a  giant  in  strength.  Now  he  is  a  sick 
man.  The  uselessness  of  it.  Nothing  was 
found  against  him,  and  yet  he  is  followed 
and  watched.  What  are  they  driving  at? 
They  are  wearing  him  to  the  bone  with 
their  persecution."  He  shrugged  his  shoul- 

[  138] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

ders  and  laughed  suddenly.  "Come,  Mrs. 
Pierce,  you  can  do  nothing  against  them. 
But  let  me  tell  you  what  I  will  give  you. 
It  is  a  German  helmet  that  a  friend  of  mine 
brought  from  the  Riga  front.  You  can 
put  it  in  your  room  and  blow  beans  at  it!" 

October. 

"Passports  —  passports,  who's  got  the 
passports?"  It's  like  a  game  —  or  la  re- 
cherche de  I'absolu.  And  it  is  n't  as  though 
you  could  hop  into  a  cab  and  make  the 
round  of  visits  on  the  General  Staff,  Civil 
Governor,  and  the  rest,  all  in  one  day,  or 
even  all  in  a  week.  Nothing  so  efficient 
and  simple  as  that.  What  is  an  official 
without  an  anteroom?  As  well  imagine  a 
soldier  without  a  uniform.  And  the  im- 
portance of  the  official  is  instantly  seen 
by  the  crowd  waiting  on  him.  Soldiers  and 
Jews  and  patient,  unobtrusive  women  in 
black  wait  at  police  headquarters;  gen- 
erals and  ladies  of  quality  crowd  the  ante- 
room of  the  General  Staff.  For  days  the 
faces  vary  only  slightly  when  you  enter 
and  take  your  accustomed  place.  Patient, 
dull  faces  that  light  with  momentary  ex- 
pectation on  the  opening  of  a  door,  and 
relapse  into  depression  and  tragic  immobil- 

[  139  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

ity  when  the  aide  walks  through  the  ante- 
room without  admitting  any  one  to  the 
inner  office. 

I  gained  admittance  to  the  Military 
Governor  the  other  day.  He  is  the  suc- 
cessor of  that  over-cautious  governor  who 
moved  all  his  household  goods  during  the 
German  advance,  and  was  then  relieved  of 
office.  His  palace,  set  back  from  the  street 
behind  a  tall  iron  fence,  is  guarded  by 
soldiers  with  bayonets,  and  secret-service 
men.  I  laughed,  recognizing  my  old  friends 
the  spies. 

Upstairs,  the  Governor  was  just  saying 
good-bye  to  Bobrinsky,  former  Governor 
of  Galicia,  and  we  stood  to  one  side  as  they 
came  out  of  an  inner  office,  bowing  and 
making  compliments  to  each  other.  Gold 
braid  and  decorations!  These  days  the 
military  have  their  innings,  to  be  sure!  I 
wonder  how  many  stupid  years  of  barrack- 
life  go  to  make  up  one  of  these  men?  Or 
perhaps  so  much  gold  braid  is  paid  for  in 
other  ways. 

The  Governor  was  an  old  man,  carefully 
preserved.  His  uniform  was  padded,  but 
his  legs,  thin  and  insecure,  gave  him  away, 
and  his  standing  collar,  though  it  came  up 
to  his  ears,  failed  to  hide  his  scrawny  neck 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

where  the  flesh  was  caving  in.  He  wore 
his  gray  beard  trimmed  to  a  point,  and 
inside  his  beaklike  nose  was  a  quantity 
of  grayish-yellow  hair  which  made  a  very 
disagreeable  impression  on  me.  All  the 
time  I  was  speaking  he  examined  his  nails. 
When  he  raised  his  eyes  finally,  to  reply,  I 
noticed  how  lifeless  and  indifferent  they 
were,  and  glazed  by  age.  I  could  see  the 
bones  of  his  face  move  under  the  skin  as 
he  talked,  especially  two  little  round  bones, 
like  balls,  close  to  his  ears. 

"I  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  case.  It 
has  been  referred  to  the  General  Staff,  I 
believe.  You  will  have  to  wait  for  the 
course  of  events." 

He  turned  his  back,  went  over  to  the 
window,  and  began  to  play  with  a  curtain- 
tassel.  An  aide  bowed  me  to  the  door. 

Outside,  the  anteroom  was  crowded  with 
supplicants.  It  was  his  reception  hour. 
The  murmur  of  whispered  conversations 
stopped  when  we  appeared.  Every  one 
rose,  pressing  forward  to  reach  the  aide. 
Some  held  out  soiled  bits  of  paper;  others 
talked  in  loud,  explanatory  voices,  as 
though  hoping  by  sheer  noise  to  pierce  the 
crust  of  official  attention.  But  the  aide 
took  no  more  notice  than  if  they  had  been 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

crowding  sheep.  He  pushed  through  them 
and  escorted  me  to  the  head  of  the  stair- 
case. Down  I  went,  boiling  with  rage. 

Dearest  Mother  and  Dad:  — 

I  am  just  back  from  the  General  Staff, 
where  the  mysterious  rotation  of  the  offi- 
cial wheel  landed  me  unexpectedly  into 
the  very  sanctum  sanctorum  of  the  Chief 
of  the  Staff,  and  to  see  him  I  had  to  wait 
only  five  hours  with  Mr.  Douglas  in  the 
anteroom!  Mr.  Douglas  has  just  left  me 
to  go  to  his  club,  exhausted,  ready  to  de- 
vour pounds  of  Moscow  sausages,  so  he 
said. 

The  anteroom  of  the  General  Staff  was 
as  Russian  as  Russian  can  be.  I  suppose 
I  shall  never  forget  the  dingy  room,  with 
its  brown  painted  walls  and  the  benches 
and  chairs  ranged  along  the  four  sides  of 
the  room,  and  the  orderlies  bringing  in 
glasses  of  tea,  and  the  waiting  people  who 
were  not  ashamed  to  be  unhappy.  In  the 
beginning  Mr.  Douglas  and  I  tried  to  talk, 
but  after  an  hour  or  so  we  relapsed  into 
silence.  I  looked  up  at  the  large  oil  paint- 
ings of  deceased  generals  which  hung  about 
the  room.  At  first,  they  all  looked  fat  and 
stupid  and  alike  in  the  huge,  ornate  gilt 

[  142  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

frames.  But  after  much  study  they  began 
to  take  on  differences  —  slight  differences 
which  it  seemed  that  the  painters  had 
caught  in  spite  of  themselves,  but  which 
made  human  beings  of  even  generals. 

There  was  one  portrait  that  I  remem- 
ber, in  the  corner,  a  general  in  the  uniform 
of  the  Crimean  War.  He  looked  out  at  you 
with  green  eyes,  like  a  cat's.  The  more  I 
looked  at  him,  the  more  he  resembled  a 
cat,  with  his  flat,  broad  head  and  slightly 
almond  eyes  and  long  mustache.  His  cheek 
bones  were  high  and  his  jaw  square  and 
cruel.  He  settled  into  his  coat-collar  the 
way  a  cat  shortens  its  neck  when  it  purrs. 
He,  too,  was  purring,  from  gratification, 
perhaps,  at  having  his  portrait  painted; 
but,  wholly  untrustworthy  himself,  he  dis- 
trusted the  world  and  held  himself  ready 
to  strike. 

Another  portrait  was  of  a  man  who 
might  have  been  of  peasant  origin.  An 
inky  black  beard  hid  the  lower  part  of  his 
face,  but  his  nose  was  blunt  and  pugna- 
cious, and  his  eyes  were  like  black  shoe- 
buttons  sewn  close  together.  He  stuck 
out  his  stomach  importantly,  and  the  care 
with  which  his  uniform  and  decorations 
were  painted  strengthened  the  impression 

1 143 1 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

that  he  had  made  his  career  himself  and 
set  the  highest  value  on  the  insignia  that 
stood  for  his  accomplishment. 

Well,  I  made  up  characters  to  fit  the 
portraits,  and  the  time  went  on.  There 
were  three  entrances  to  the  room,  through 
which  aides  and  orderlies  were  constantly 
appearing  and  disappearing.  The  room 
filled  up  with  people  and  smelt  of  oiled 
leather  and  smoke.  The  women  did  not 
move  from  their  chairs,  but  the  men  got 
up  and  stood  about,  talking  in  groups.  I 
began  to  feel  that  I  had  known  these  cap- 
tains and  majors  and  lieutenants  all  my 
life.  They  looked  at  me  curiously,  and  if 
they  knew  Mr.  Douglas  they  asked  to  be 
presented  to  me. 

"How  do  you  like  Russia?" 

They  spoke  French.  I  looked  at  Mr. 
Douglas  and  smiled. 

"Very  much." 

They  were  pleased. 

"Ah,  you  do?  That  is  good.  Russia  is 
a  wonderful  country  and  its  resources  are 
endless.  But  it  is  war-time.  You  should 
see  Russia  in  peace-time.  There  is  no 
country  in  the  world  where  one  amuses 
one's  self  so  well  as  in  Russia.  But  first 
we  must  beat  the  Germans." 

[  H4  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

They  all  begin  that  way,  and  then 
branch  out  into  their  particular  line  of 
conversation. 

There  was  a  woman  near  me,  her  mourn- 
ing veil  thrown  back,  disclosing  a  death- 
like face.  Her  features  were  pinched,  and 
her  pale  lips  were  pressed  tightly  together 
in  suffering.  She  had  been  waiting  surely 
three  hours  since  sending  in  her  card,  and 
all  that  time  she  had  scarcely  moved.  Some- 
times I  forgot  her,  and  then  my  eyes  would 
fall  on  her  and  I  wondered  how  I  could  see 
anybody  else  in  the  room.  In  comparison 
to  her  all  the  others  seemed  fussy  or  melo- 
dramatic or  false  in  some  way.  Suffering 
was  condensed  in  her.  It  flowed  through 
her  body.  It  settled  in  the  shadows  of  her 
face  and  clothed  her  in  black.  Her  gloved 
hands  pressed  each  other.  Her  eyes  stared 
in  front  of  her,  full  of  pain  like  a  hurt 
beast's.  She  sat  as  though  carved  in  stone, 
dark  against  the  window,  the  lines  of  her 
body  rigid  and  clear-cut  like  a  statue's. 

At  last  an  aide  came  toward  her,  spruce 
and  alert,  holding  a  paper  in  his  hand.  She 
rose  at  his  approach,  leaning  on  the  back 
of  her  chair,  her  body  bent  forward  tensely. 
He  spoke  to  her  in  a  low  voice,  consulting 
the  slip  of  paper  in  his  hand.  All  at  once 

[  H5  1 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

she  straightened  herself,  and  a  burning 
expression  came  into  her  face.  One  hand 
went  to  her  heart,  .exactly  as  though  a 
bullet  had  pierced  her  breast.  Then  she 
gave  a  sharp  cry,  and  hurling  her  pocket- 
book  across  the  room  with  all  her  strength, 
she  rushed  outside. 

Every  one  dodged  as  though  the  pocket- 
book  had  been  aimed  at  him.  A  young 
second  lieutenant  picked  it  from  the  floor 
and  stood  twisting  it  in  his  hands,  not 
knowing  what  to  do  with  it.  People  looked 
uneasy  and  ashamed  as  though  a  door  had 
been  suddenly  opened  on  a  terrible  secret 
thing  that  was  customarily  locked  up  in  a 
closet.  But  the  uncomfortable  feeling  soon 
passed,  and  they  began  to  talk  about  the 
strange  woman  and  to  gossip  and  play 
and  amuse  themselves  with  her  sorrow.  A 
crowd  collected  about  the  aide,  who  grew 
more  and  more  voluble  and  important  each 
time  he  repeated  his  explanation  of  the 
incident. 

Shortly  afterward,  Mr.  Douglas  and  I 
were  admitted  to  the  Chief  of  Staff.  The 
walls  of  his  office  were  covered  with  large 
maps,  with  tiny  flags  marking  the  battle- 
fronts,  and  he  sat  at  a  large  table  occupy- 
ing the  center  of  the  room. 

[  146  ] 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

When  we  entered,  he  rose  and  bowed,  and 
after  waving  me  to  a  chair,  reseated  himself. 
He  was  rather  like  a  university  professor, 
courteous,  with  a  slightly  ironical  twist  to 
his  very  red  lips.  His  pale  face  was  narrow 
and  long,  with  a  pointed  black  beard,  and  a 
forehead  broad  and  high  and  white.  While 
he  listened  or  talked,  he  nervously  drew 
arabesques  on  a  pad  of  paper  on  the  table. 

"I  have  your  petition,  but  since  I  have 
just  been  appointed  here,  I  am  not  very 
familiar  with  routine  matters."  Here  he 
smiled  slightly.  "Yours  is  a  routine  mat- 
ter, I  should  say.  How  long  have  you 
waited  for  an  answer  —  four  months  ? 
We'll  see  what  can  be  done.  I  have  sent 
to  the  files  and  I  should  have  a  report  in 
a  few  minutes." 

An  aide  brought  in  a  collection  of  tele- 
grams and  papers,  and  the  chief  glanced 
through  them.  Then  he  looked  at  me 
searchingly  and  suddenly  smiled  again. 

"From  your  appearance  I  should  never 
imagine  you  were  as  dangerous  as  these 
papers  state.  Are  you  an  American?" 

"Yes,"  I  replied;  "and  I  assure  you 
that  I  am  dangerous  only  in  the  official 
mind.  I  have  no  importance  except  what 
they  give  me." 

[  i47l 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

"Mrs.  Pierce  is  an  American  and  un- 
used to  Russian  ways,"  Mr.  Douglas  said 
apologetically. 

"Well,  your  case  has  been  referred  to 
General  Ivanoff,  and  I  will  wire  him  again 
at  once.  If  you  come  back  next  Thursday 
I  will  give  you  a  definite  answer." 

We  went  out.  It  was  a  gray  winter  day, 
with  a  cold  wind  from  the  river,  but  I  felt 
glowing  and  stimulated  and  alive,  seeing 
the  future  crystallize  and  grow  definite 
again.  You  can't  imagine  the  wearing  de- 
pression of  months  of  uncertainty. 

"That  Chief  of  Staff  is  the  first  human 
official  I  Ve  met,"  I  said  to  Mr.  Douglas. 

"Give  him  time,  give  him  time,"  Doug- 
las replied.  "Did  n't  you  hear  him  say  he 
was  new  to  the  job?" 

I  write  such  long  letters  and  all  about 
things.  But  I  want  you  to  see  with  me  so 
we  may  share  our  lives  in  spite  of  distance. 
Armfuls  of  love  to  you,  my  dearest  ones, 
from 

RUTH. 

November. 

The  Dowager  Empress  came  to  Kiev 
to-day  to  visit  a  convent  that  she  has  under 
her  protection*  The  Christiatick  was  very 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

animated,  with  curious  crowds  lining  the 
sidewalks  and  fierce-looking  gendarmes 
who  snapped  their  whips  and  made  a  great 
fuss  about  keeping  the  people  in  order.  The 
trams  were  stopped  and  officials  rushed 
up  and  down  the  Christiatick  in  huge  gray 
automobiles.  It  was  bitterly  cold,  and  the 
waiting  people  grew  restless.  At  last  a  fee- 
ble cheer  started  up  the  street  and  swept 
down  the  lines  as  a  big  car  came  tearing 
down  the  middle  of  the  street.  I  caught 
a  glimpse  of  an  elderly  woman  in  black  — 
that  was  all. 

I  went  home.  All  the  way  up  the  hill  I 
walked  beside  a  "crocodile."  How  pathetic 
those  convent  children  are  in  their  funny 
little  round  hats,  all  so  much  too  small, 
and  their  maroon-colored  dresses  with  the 
shoulder-capes  to  hide  any  suggestion  of 
sex.  Their  noses  were  pinched  and  their 
lips  were  blue  from  waiting  in  the  cold  to 
see  their  "protector."  They  were  at  the 
age  "between  hay  and  grass,"  narrow- 
chested,  and  long-legged  like  colts.  They 
climbed  the  hill  stiffly  two  by  two,  their 
eyes  looking  meekly  at  the  ground.  Three 
sisters  kept  them  in  line. 

At  home  I  found  a  summons  from  the 
police  to  appear  with  Marie  at  the  local 

[  H9  1 


BLACK  RUSSIA 

police  bureau  to-morrow  at  nine,  to  re- 
ceive our  passports.  I  telegraphed  Peter 
through  Mr.  Douglas.  Now  that  our  affair 
is  settled,  I  feel  no  emotion  —  neither 
relief  nor  joy. 


THE   END 


ttftetffce 

CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .   S    .   A 


RETURN  TO 


USE 

WHICH  BORROWED 


LOAN  DEPT. 


JAM  2  5  1984 


LD21A-10m-8,'73 
(E1902S10)476 — A-31 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


382155 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


